;5S1. THE FliKSlI-WATKK FISHES OF EUROPE. 



of them, as it swims away- Mauy lishcrnien have tlie luck to take ten larg"e 

 Sturg-eon in a day ; but sometimes the fisheries barely pay their expenses, 

 for many days may ])ass without a fish being- speared. This mode of fish- 

 ing is pursued on a larg-e scale by the Cossacks of the River Ural. The 

 first fish is given to the Church, and the others are sent away on sledg-es as 

 fast as possible. Frequently travelling fish-merchants buy up the fishes and 

 prepare the roes and flesh for market. 



In summer, fishing villages are established near the mouths of the great 

 Russian rivers. Russian or Greek merchants hire pieces of the banks, 

 and construct the necessary buildings for storing salt, and for sleeping 

 accommodation for the fishermen, from twelve to twenty of whom share a 

 hut. Mills are set up for grinding the salt, boats are provided, and people of 

 many races are engaged in the work. The men live on fish, usually with 

 mutton on Sundays. An elevated outlook is set up on the bank, in which a 

 man watches the approach of the shoal, and is often able by its characteristic 

 movements to distinguish the species from an immense distance, as the fishes 

 move up the river. At Rubinsk, on the Volga, in the Russian government 

 of Yaroslav, the fisheries in spring and summer draw together a hundred 

 thousand people, who work continuously for the season, and return to their 

 homes in winter. 



Fifteen thousand fishes have been taken at one fishery in a sing'le day; and 

 when the fishing has been intermitted for a day, the fishes have sometimes 

 completely blocked a river 28 feet deep and 360 feet wide, so that the backs of 

 the uppermost appeared above the water. 



Acipenser glaber (Marsilius). 



The Austrians terra the Acijjcnser glahcv, GluUd'ivk or (lUill-xtar, but it 

 reaches Austria only through the Danube, its home being in the ]51ack Sea and 

 Sea of Azov, from which it ascends all the rivers flowing into these waters. It 

 is not a larg"e species, and no specimens have been taken in Hungary w^eighing- 

 more than sixty pounds, and fishes of less than thirty pounds are not often 

 seen (Fig. 171). 



In this species the eutii'e length of the fish is about five and a half times the 

 length of the head. The snout is short and rounded, broad, and rather thick, 

 and the profile rises rapidly from it to the first dorsal shield at the back of the 

 head, where the body attains its greatest height. The armour on the skull, 

 which only sheathes the thick cephalic cartilage, corresponds in a remarkable 

 way with the bones which usually enclose the brain, and consists of flat, long, 

 rather small shields, which are furrowc^l with radiating grooves placed close 



