2890 THE BONY FISHES AND GANOIDS 



some localities they bury their noses in the mud, with their bodies and tails stand- 

 ing vertically upward like a series of posts. They increase very rapidly in size; 

 and the eggs are hatched in five days. Although still abundant in the northern 

 rivers, in those of Central Europe sturgeon have greatly decreased in numbers, and 

 few really big fish are now taken. In the beginning of the year, when they are 

 still torpid, sturgeon are captured by breaking the ice, and stirring up the mud at 

 the bottom of their haunts with very long poles armed with barbed prongs. As 

 the fish seek to escape, some are stabbed with the spears; and it is said that half a 



STERLET. 

 (One-tenth natural size.) 



score of large fish may be thus taken by a single fisherman. In summer regular 

 fishing stations are established on the Russian rivers, where the approach of a shoal 

 is heralded by a watchman. Upward of fifteen thousand sturgeon have been taken 

 in a day at one of these stations; and when the fishing is suspended for a short 

 time, a river of nearly four hundred feet in width, and five-and-twenty in depth 

 has been known to be completely blocked by a solid mass of fish. 



The common sturgeon (Atipenser sturio}, of which a small example 

 True Stur- . , 



geons 1S snown m the illustration facing p. 2889, is the typical representative 



of the first genus, in which the rows of bony plates remain distinct 

 from one another on the tail, spiracles are present on the head, the upper lobe of 



