ACCIPENSER. 117 



completely out. It is said, but with how much 

 truth, is not easy to determine, that it does not 

 hesitate to leap out in order to fall on other marine 

 animals, for the purpose of overcoming them by its 

 weight. In this way we are continually hearing of 

 their falling into boats, when the weather is calm. 



In the Middletown Conn. Gazette, of July, 

 1831, is an interesting account of a sturgeon, 

 weighing one hundred and eighty six pounds,- 

 which unceremoniously sprang into a small boat, 

 bound from that place to Rocky Hill, and in the 

 fall broke an oar and one of the seats. 



Says the Hartford Courant, in the summer of 

 1830, — '' Last Saturday afternoon, as sundry per- 

 sons were employed in painting the hull of the 

 schooner Exact, now lying at our wharf, they 

 were suddenly interrupted in their labor by an ab- 

 rupt and unceremonious visit from one of the in- 

 habitants of the river. They were standing in a 

 scow w^iich was drawn along side the schooner, 

 surrounded with their paint-pots, and busily plying 

 their brushes, when a sturgeon about seven feet 

 long and three feet in circumference, making his 

 way between the scow and the schooner, where 

 there was just room enough to afford a passage, 

 dashed in among the astonished painters, overturn- 

 ed the pots, mixed their various contents in one 

 mass, and having thus formed a new^ combination 



