REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



65 



The Following Table Shows the Distribution by Months and Years of the Sturgeon 

 Shipped from Rhode Island between 1903 and 1908. 



Reproduction: Ascends rivers to spawn in spring and summer. Eggs, 

 2.6 nam. in diameter. (For development and description of eggs and 

 young, see Ryder. Bull. U. S. Fish Comm. VIII, 1881, 231, and Dean, 

 Fishes, Living and Fossil, 1895, p. 202, 221; Brice, Report U. S. Fish 

 Com. XXIII, 1897, 189. W. S. Tower, Pop. Sci. Mon., 73, 1908, 361.) 



Food: Molluscs and Crustacea, which it obtains by grubbing in the mud. 

 (See Ryder, loc. cit.) 



Size: Five to 12 feet, weighing 50 to 300 pounds. 



32. Acipenser brevirostrum (LeSueur). Short-nosed Sturgeon. 



Geog. Dist. : Cape Cod to Florida, rare northward, extending further 

 southward than other species. Reported from Boston Harbor, Waquoit, 

 Rockport and Woods Hole, though none of the writers make very definite 

 statements. Specimens 'taken at Gravesend Bay, May 13, 1896 (Bean, 

 1903). 



Season in R. I.: Occurs in company with the common sturgeon, which it 

 resembles in habit. Ryder (Bull. U. S. Fish Comm. VIII, 1888, p. 231) 

 has described the species and its natural history. 



Reproduction: In Delaware river, it spawns in May. Eggs are adhesive 

 and deposited in depths of 1 to 5 fathoms in hard bottom in brackish 

 water. Period of hatching is 4 to 6 days. (Dean, Zool. Anz. XVI., 

 1893, 473.) 



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