ACIPEXSER THE STURGEONS 2 5 



and belly and of sides between scutes more or less densely covered with 

 small rough spinule- or tubercle-like ossifications;* sides of upper 

 caudal lobe sheathed with small rhombic plates. 



This species, which is confined to inland waters, was formerly 

 abundant throughout the Great Lake region and the Mississippi 

 Valley. Lake sturgeon have of late years been steadily decreasing, 

 and are now only rarely taken in the .Mississippi on our own bi orders, 

 and are seldom caught in the Illinois. Fishermen at Alton now see 

 but five or six in a year that weigh over 10 lb, whereas fifteen years 

 ago forty or fifty large ones, weighing from 50 to 100 lb, were taken 

 each season. 



The lake sturgeon is said to inhabit comparatively shoal waters 

 in the lakes, ascending streams in the spring to spawn. The most 

 extensive study of their habits has been made by Milner, who found 

 their food, in the Great Lakes, to consist almost entirely of fresh- 

 water snails (Gasteropoda). Crawfishes and insect larva' are 

 also eaten by them, and the eggs of fishes have been occasionally 

 found in their stomachs, though not in quantity sufficient to justify 

 the charge of destructive spawn-eating sometimes made. Lake 

 sturgeon taken in the vicinity of grain elevators have been found 

 with stomachs well filled with corn or wheat. They spawn early in 

 June, generally preferring rocky ledges near the shores. While their 

 spawn is probably subject to the depredations of other fishes, the 

 young are well protected, after reaching two or three inches in 

 length, by their spine-tipped bucklers Adult sturgeons are much 

 subject to attack by lampreys. 



Previous to 1870 the flesh of the lake sturgeon was scarcely used. 

 Fishermen generally made no use of them at all, and by many they 

 were considered a nuisance and ruthlessly destroyed. In the 

 following decade, however, several firms began the business of 

 smoking lake sturgeon and manufacturing caviar, isinglass, and oil 

 from the eggs, air-bladders, and viscera. Smoked lake sturgeon is 

 now considered a superior article, and lake caviar is ranked as the 

 best produced in the United States — selling (in 1898) for eighty- 

 cents a pound, while the Delaware product brought only sixty cents, 

 and the South Atlantic fifty cents (Gill). 



The artificial propagation of lake sturgeon was seriously con- 

 sidered by the United States Government in 1898, when a hatchery 



* Younger specimens are much rougher than adults; in a young sturgeon in 

 inches long taken at < Ittawa, 111., eai h lateral scute has a pei ufiar flexuo e 1 eel oi 



ridge in pit I the charai teristic < entral spine, and the ventral plates are similarly 



keeled We have small spei in i-'ir. m ail. lit ion which arc perfectly normal in t lie 

 Li ter nieni ii med 



