120 STURIONES. 



scales, which are exceedingly hard, for rasps and 

 graters.* Caviare, an excellently flavored, though, 

 perhaps, rather indigestible food, is made of the 

 roes, pressed into hard cakes, about one inch 

 thick, by four square. 



During the long Lent of the Greek church, and 

 the weekly fast days, exceeding in the aggregate, 

 four months, sturgeon is the principal food of all 

 European Russia. It was calculated in 1794, 

 that 1,750,500, yielded 4,366,800 pounds of ca- 

 viare. Its value as a wholesome food may be in- 

 ferred from this statement. The estimated value 

 of the sturgeons caught in Astrakhan and the Cas- 

 pian Sea, alone, is 1,760,405 roubles annually; 

 which sum is realized from England, by the sale 

 of isinglass and caviare, now getting into common 

 use. 



The Persians will not eat sturgeon, but rent the 

 grounds of the Sallian to the Russians, who in the 

 spawning time, have taken with a hook and line, 

 fifteen thousand large sturgeons in one day. These 

 facts are introduced in this place, with a hope that 

 they may resuscitate the long neglected, but profit- 

 able sturgeon fishery at the south. 



In our collection, is a small fish, evidently very 



* The sturgeon is the largest fish in the Lakes. The stur- 

 geon of Lake Erie has no dorsal fin, — otherwise it resembles 

 the sturgeon of the rivers and ocean, and has the same habit 

 of leaping or vaulting out of water. 



