590 ORDER CHONDROPTERYGII. 



common sturgeon, three other species of this genus, 

 and perhaps more ! . 



Acipenser Ruthenns, L., A. pygmceus, Pall., Bl. 89. 

 (the sterlet). Which does not exceed two feet in 

 length, and in which the bucklers of the lateral 

 ranges are more numerous, carinated, and those of 

 the belly flat. It is considered delicious, and its 

 caviar is reserved for the court. 



There is reason to believe that it is the Elops and 

 the Acipenser, so celebrated among the ancients 2 . 



Acipensor helops, Pall., Ac. steuatus, Bl., Schn., 

 Marsil. Dan. IV. xii. 2. Attains to four feet in length, 

 and has the beak longer and more slender, and the 

 bucklers more bristled than the others. Its abundance 

 is prodigious ; but it is not so good as the sturgeon. 



Acipenser huso, L., Bl. 129. (the great sturgeon). 

 Whose bucklers are more blunt, the muzzle and 

 barbels shorter than in the ordinary sturgeon ; the 

 skin is smoother. It often attains twelve and fifteen 

 feet in length, and more than twelve hundred pounds 

 weight ; one has been seen which weighed nearly 

 three thousand. The flesh of this species is not so 



1 The species of the sturgeon are as yet but ill determined by- 

 naturalists, and even Pallas, who was best acquainted with them, 

 has not assigned them, in his Russian Zoology, comparative charac- 

 ters sufficiently distinct, and he neither agrees with Kramer, nor with 

 Guldenstedt, nor with Lechepin. On the other hand, the figures of 

 Marsigli are too rude. We should expect better of the Austrian 

 naturalists, to whom the Danube presents these fishes in abundance. 



2 See my note on Lemaire's edition of Pliny, vol. ii. 74. 



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