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441 
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of from 50 to 100 pounds. Most of the other species are marine forms that only 
ascend rivers to spawn, but this one is permanently confined to the lakes. It 
varies much with age, the young having a slender long snout, which becomes 
quite blunt in the adult, also sharp hooks on the bony shields, which become 
smooth with age, while the ventral shields grow smaller and finally disappear. 
The dorsal shields average 13 in number (11-16), the laterals 34 (30-39), the 
ventrals 8-10, while the tin-formula is D 35, A 26. 
This species owes its scientific specific name to the reddish colour of the sides 
of the body ; the dorsal surface, however, is dark in hue. 
The Sturgeon is hardly appreciated at its true value in Ontario, the greatest 
proportion of the fish caught in Canadian waters being shipped to the States for 
sale. It is a fish nevertheless, of high economic importance, its flesh being of 
excellent nutritive quality and good although somewhat meaty flavour. The 
sounds or air-bladders furnish the best quality of isinglass, and the roe the expen- 
sive delicacy “caviare,’ but these accessory products are not properly taken 
advantage of in the Province. 
On the whole the Sturgeon frequents comparatively shallow water, and is 
therefore oftener taken in pound-nets than in gill-nets (p. 464) but it is most 
easily captured in the spring of the year at spawning-time when numbers congregate 
about the mouths of rivers. The spawning time may be as early as the middle of 
May, but in Lake Superior it is delayed till July. At this time the habits of the 
fish render them comparatively defenceless ; they run in schools, depositing their 
spawn along seams in rocky ledges as has been observed at the head of the 
Niagara River, the femaies followed by the males, and both rolling over and over 
on the bottom, and then suddenly leaping from the water and falling back with a 
splash. They can often be successfully gaffed, or taken by hauling a grapnel 
hook along the bottom—a method which must wound many fish which after- 
wards escape; finally they are sometimes speared even in comparatively deep 
water (25 to 30 feet) by Indians, by means of a long spear with detachable handle, 
the iron of which has a line fastened to it. 
The eggs are of large size (one-ninth of an inch in diameter) and very numerous 
(from one to two millions in a large fish). Comparatively few of these can meet 
with the necessary conditions for their successful development, as the adults are 
not met with in the numbers which might be anticipated. 
A comparatively short time—four to tive days—suffices for the hatching 
process, the embryos escaping at the end of this period. 
Nothing is known of the food of the embryo fish, but it is undoubtedly 
formed of minute forms of life which afterwards give place to the shell-fish 
(Physa, Planorbis, Limnea, Valvata, etc.) on which the adult feeds. 
Unlike the Sturgeons, the bony Ganoids are utterly worthless as food, but 
as before remarked, they have a high claim toscientific interest. They approach 
the ordinary bony fishes in that the gill-cover has all the four bones, and the 
branchiostegal rays. The air-bladder is almost lung-like in character and 
accounts for the circumstance that the fish are able to live out of water fora very 
considerable time, and are often to be seen leaping and snapping air. 
_ Externally the ditference between the Gar-Pikes and the Bowfins or Mud- 
fishes is very marked, for the enamelled coat of armour of the former is far more 
unlike the scaly coat of an ordinary fish than is the skin of the latter, but in 
their internal structure they offer a very close agreement. 
Three species of Bony Ganoids occur in Ontario, two Gar-pikes (Lepidosteus 
osseus and L. platystomus) and the Mudfish (Amia calva). 
_. The Gar-pikes have an elongated, almost cylindrical body covered with the 
