THE STURGEON. 177 
or what becomes of the young after leaving the 
egos, are mysteries. I never saw a small stur- 
geon, but have no doubt most of the young 
fish descend to the sea, although it is equally 
certain numbers remain entirely in the fresh- 
water. Madame Sturgeon’s family is by no 
means a small one: a bushel of eggs is not 
an unusual quantity for a female fish to yield; 
a great many thousands, although I do not 
know how many eggs a bushel contains. The 
Indians dry these eggs in the sun and devour 
them with oil, as we eat currants and cream. 
It would surely pay to prepare cauiare on the 
Russian plan, even to send it to the English 
market. A rough kind of isinglass was at one 
time prepared by the Fraser river Indians and 
traded by the Hudson’s Bay Company, but even 
that branch of industry has ceased to flourish 
since the ‘Golden Age.’ Indians are exceed- 
ingly fond of sturgeon-flesh, and usually demand 
a high price for it. 
Few fish have a wider geographical range than 
sturgeon. On our own coasts, we find them 
frequenting the mouths of rivers and muddy 
estuaries. When caught in the Thames, within 
the jurisdiction of the lord mayor of London, 
it is considered a royal fish; implying, that the 
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