THE STURGEON 39 
The sturgeon requires an immense amount of food to 
nourish his great carcase, and seeing what a small mouth he 
has to collect it withal, it behoves him to be diligent and 
active. Hence his name, “the stirring one,” for he routs 
bravely with his nose in gravel, sand, and mud, his sensitive 
barbules apprising him of the presence of edible bodies, and 
his extensile lips enabling him to suck them in. No 
vegetarian, he lives chiefly on worms, small fish, molluscs, 
and crustaceans. In captivity, as he may sometimes be seen 
at the Brighton Aquarium, he devours enormous quantities of 
lug-worms. Yet his boldness and voracity are of no service 
to the angler. A sturgeon eight or nine feet long were 
indeed a worthy quarry to contend for, but at present he 
cannot be reckoned among our sporting fishes. 
Occasionally an American species, Acipenser maculosus, finds 
its way across the Atlantic, and is taken in British estuaries, 
but not with sufficient frequency to earn for it a place in our 
native fauna. A variety of sturgeon, with a snout broader 
and thicker than ordinary, has been distinguished as a species 
under the title of Acipenser Jlatirostris, but Dr. Gunther 
refuses to admit it to specific rank. 
