38 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



female is enormously prolific, some individuals containing 

 upwards of three millions of eggs. Frank Buckland 

 weighed the ovaries in a female sturgeon, 9 feet 6 inches 

 long, taken in June 1877 at Chepstow, on the Wye. The 

 weight of this fish was 3-^ cwt. ; that of her eggs 27 Ib. 

 The collection of the spawn of this and other species of 

 sturgeon before it is shed, and its conversion into caviare, 

 form an important summer industry near the mouths of the 

 great rivers of Eastern Europe. The most important scene of 

 operations is at Rubinsk, on the Volga, where as many as one 

 hundred thousand people collect, it is said, in spring, and await 

 the approach of the fish. Of this, notice is given by an out- 

 look upon a height, and as soon as the shoal is within the 

 channel, nets, spears, and gaff-hooks are set to work, and the 

 carnage begins. Thousands of these great fish are sometimes 

 landed in a single day ; the caviare is taken out, washed in 

 vinegar, and spread upon boards in the open air. Then it is 

 vigorously salted by hand-rubbing, pressed in bags and packed 

 in kegs for the market. In Russia it is very largely consumed 

 as an article of diet, carrying the common people conveniently 

 over the three periods of fasting ; but in this country it is 

 only known as a superfluous savoury for jaded palates. The 

 flesh is said to be wholesome and palatable, being described 

 as resembling a compound of veal and eel, with a flavouring 

 of lobster. The air-bladder is substantial, and is carefully 

 dried by the fishermen to be sold and converted into isinglass. 

 Altogether the sturgeon is a valuable iish economically, and 

 vast though the numbers be of the several species frequenting 

 Russian and Asiatic waters, the ruthless extent to which they 

 are slaughtered at the spawning season must eventually tell 

 its tale upon the race. Mr. Seeley states, but does not cite 

 any authority, that in the middle of last century " it was rare 

 to see a fish in the Vienna market of less than 100 Ib., and 

 now (1886) only very small ones are caught."* 



* The Fresh- Water Fishes of Europe, p. 383. 



