528 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



towards the end of winter, and of osier-hurdles during summer. The 

 fishermen estahlish themselves upon a sort of scaffold placed over the 

 opening. When the fish is engaged in the reservoir, the men upon 

 the scaffold drop a gate, which prevents his return to the sea. The 

 movable bottom of the chamber is now raised, and the fishes easily 

 taken, as represented in PL. XXYI. 



The fishermen are informed during the day of the approach of the 

 sturgeons to the great enclosure by the movement they communicate 

 to cords suspended to small floating substances in the water. During 

 the night the sturgeons enter the enclosure, agitating by their move- 

 ments other cords arranged round the hurdles. The agitation com- 

 municated to the cord is sufficient to shut the gates behind ; they are 

 thus imprisoned by the dropping of the gate, which in falling sounds 

 a bell to wake the watching fisherman on the scaffold, should. he be 

 asleep. The sturgeon-fisheries of the Volga are thus admirably organ- 

 ized. Gmelin describes with some minuteness the sturgeon-fishing, 

 during the winter, in the caverns and hollows of the river-banks near 

 Astrakhan, in the estuary of the Volga. A great number of fisher- 

 men are assembled there with their boats. The flotilla approaches 

 the retreats to which the fishes have betaken themselves, the nets 

 are skilfully arranged all round them, and all at once the whole mass 

 of fishermen join in a great cry, at which the frightened fishes rush 

 from their concealment and throw themselves into the nets spread for 

 them. 



The size of the fish, the nourishing properties of its flesh, its healthy 

 and agreeable taste, and the immense quantity of eggs produced, have 

 a wonderful power in exciting the commerce and industry of the in- 

 habitants of these countries. In order to give some idea of the abun- 

 dance of the eggs of the sturgeon, it is stated that the weight of two 

 ovaries equalled nearly a third of the weight of the whole animal ; in 

 other words, these ovaries weighed nearly eight hundred pounds in a 

 female whose weight was two thousand eight hundred pounds. 



It is with these eggs chiefly, but not altogether, that caviare is pre- 

 pared ; and the article is more or less relished according to the state of 

 the eggs. The display of caviare, as exhibited at the Universal Expo- 

 sition of Paris during the year 1867, will remain to those who have 

 visited it one of the most lasting recollections. 



