2 ACIPENSERTD^. 



Bloch's figure is worthless from the want of correct 

 details. 



Sturgeons named, evidently from their size, Stor, 

 Storje, Stoer, and Storjer, by the Scandinavians, inhabit 

 the Baltic, the German Ocean, the English and Irish 

 Channels, and the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caspian, 

 and Baikal. They abound also in the waters of North 

 America which fall into the Atlantic and Pacific, but 

 they do not appear to frequent rivers which flow into the 

 icy seas. They feed at the bottom, in deep water, be- 

 yond the ordinary reach of sea-nets, and are therefore 

 very rarely taken, except in friths, estuaries, or rivers, 

 which they enter for the purpose of spawning. They 

 are more frequently captured in the Scottish waters than 

 on the southern coasts of England, and have been taken, 

 according to Thompson, in the Irish counties of Cork, 

 Derry, Kilkenny, Wexford, Dublin, Down, and Antrim. 

 Examples are by no means uncommon in the fishmongers' 

 shops of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, and 

 other large towns, a few coming into the hands of the 

 principal dealers every season. One caught in a stake- 

 net near Findhorn in Scotland in July 1833, measured 

 eight feet six inches in length, and weighed two hundred 

 and three pounds. Pennant records the capture of one 

 in the Esk which weighed four hundred and sixty pounds ; 

 and a head prepared by Mr. Stirling of the Anatomical 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh, was cut from a 

 Sturgeon caught near Alloa, said to weigh, when entire, 

 fifty stones, or seven hundred pounds ; its length was 

 nine feet. 



The debris of crustaceans and half-digested pieces of 

 fish, mixed with decaying vegetable matters and mud, have 

 been found in the stomachs of Sturgeons, and their food 

 is probably any soft animal or vegetable organisms that 



