28 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



The flesh of the shovel-nosed sturgeon is now regularly 

 marketed, being cut into steaks or smoked. At Louisville, 

 where this fish is abundant and is taken in seines, the eggs are 

 mixed with those of the paddle-fish and used for caviar. The 

 shovel-nosed sturgeon fishery of the Mississippi and its tribu- 

 taries yields now about 700,000 lb annually. The catch in the 

 Mississippi on our border varies from 50,000 to 100,000 lb. The 

 Illinois River catch was 18,000 lb in 1899, but has since rapidly 

 declined, and this fish is seldom taken now so far north as 

 Havana. 



Genus PARASCAPHIRHYNCHUS Forbes & Eichardson 



white sturgeon 



Snout broad and shovel-shaped; caudal peduncle long and flattened 

 and completely armored; lips as in Scaphirhynchus; spiracles wanting; pseudo- 

 branchiae obsolescent; gill-rakers 2- or 3-pointed; ribs 20 or 21; air-bladder 

 8 in length of head and body. Mississippi and Missouri rivers. One species. 



PARASCAPHIRHYNCHUS ALBUS Forbes & Eichardson 



WHITE STURGEON* 

 (PL., p. 26) 

 Forbes & Richardson, '05, Bull. 111. State Lab. Nat. Hist, VII, 37-44. 



Body comparatively short; depth 7.5 to 9 in length of head and body; 

 distance from gill-cavity to front of dorsal fin 2.5 in length; length 3 to 4 

 ft.f Color very light, the upper parts bluish gray in life, the lower parts of 

 the sides and belly shading from very light gray to almost milky white. 

 Head longer and somewhat more depressed than in S. 'platorhynchus, 2.9 to 

 3.2 in length; width of rostrum 2.5 to 2.9 in its length, the snout narrower 

 and more pointed than in Scaphirhynchus; interorl^ital space 3.7 to 4.2 in 

 head; eye very small, 8.3 to 10 in distance between orbits; mouth larger 

 than in ScGphirhynchus, its width 1.4 to 1.6 in the greatest width of the 

 rostrum; papilla" of the four clusters of the lower lip reduced to a few flat- 

 tened scallops at the hinder margin of the lappet; barbels doubly pectinated 

 on the anterior edge, the posterior pectinations obsolete or wanting, the inner 

 barbels 1.7 to 2.9 in length of outer; gill-membranes meeting in a full and 

 deep and rather sharp angle, the membranes continued backward on each 

 side so as to cover the anterior fourth of the pectoral shields; gill-rakers 10 



* This fish is distinguished as the "white sturgeon" by the Mississippi River fishermen 

 who are acquainted with it, the common shovel-nose {Scaphirhynchus plalorhynchus) , which 

 is of a yellowish brown color, being known by them usually as the "switch-tail," in allusion to 

 its long caudal filament. 



f Our largest specimen of this species measures 433^ inches from tip of snout to base of 

 caudal, its weight being 9^ tb. Air. H. L. Ashlock, of Alton, says that he has seen specimens 

 4^ feet in length, with an estimated weight of 15 to 25 lb. 



