Class IV. STURGEON. 127 



all the other forts of fturgeons, dried, faked, and 

 packed up clofe. The beft is faid to be made of 

 thofe of the Sterlet *, a fmall fpeeies frequent in the 

 Talk and Volga. Icthyocolla f, or ifing-glafs, is alio 

 made of the found of our fifh, as well as that of the 

 others, but the Beluga affords the beft J. 



The fturgeon grows to a great fize, to the rj ESCRI? 

 length of eighteen hct, and to the weight of five 

 hundred pounds, but it is feldom taken in our 

 rivers of that bulk. The largeft we have known 

 caught in thofe of Great Britain weighed four 

 hundred and fixty pounds, which was taken about 

 two years ago in the E/k, where they are more fre- 

 quently found than in our fouthern waters. 



* Strahlenberg's Hiji. Rnjjia, 337. 



f Phil. Tranf. LVII. 354. A very fmall quantity is made 

 from this fpeeies, and that only defigned as prefents to great 

 men, as Mr. Forfler afTured me. 



% The antients were acquainted with the fifh that afford- 

 ed this drug. Pliny lib. XXXII. c. 7. mentions it under the 

 name of Icthyocolla, and fays, that the glue that was produced 

 from it had the fame title ; and afterwards adds, that it was 

 made out of the belly of the fifh. The Mario, faid by Pliny 

 lib. IX. c. 15. to be found in the Danube and the Boryjlhenes, 

 was certainly of this genus, a cartilaginous fifh (nullis ojfibu; 

 fpinifve interfitis) refembling a fmall porpeffe (Porculo marino 

 Jimillimus ;) and very probably may be the fame with the Belu- 

 ga, which, according to Mr. Forfler, Phil. Tranf. LVII. 354. 

 has a fhort blunt nofe, agreeing in that refpect with the por- 

 peffe. 



The 



