Class IV. COMMON STURGEON. 167 



adjacent shores are formed into districts, and 

 farmed out to companies of fishermen, some 

 of which are rented for six thousand guilders, 

 or near three hundred pounds per annum. 



Sturgeons are found in vast abundance in the 

 American rivers in May, June, and July, parti- 

 cularly in those of Virginia, where they are in 

 such multitudes, that six hundred have been 

 taken in two days, with no more trouble than 

 putting down a pole with a hook at the end, to 

 the bottom, and drawing it up again, on per- 

 ceiving that it rubbed against a fish. * 



Caviare is made of the roes of this, and also 

 of all the other sorts of sturgeons, dried, salted, 

 and packed up close. The best is said to be 

 made of those of the Sterlet, j a small species 

 frequent in the Yaik and Volga. Icthyocolla, J 

 or ising-glass, is also made of the sound of our 

 fish, as well as that of the others, but the Be- 

 luga affords the best. § 



* Doctor Burnaly's Travels, p. 15. 



t Strahlenberg s Hist. Russia, 337. Accipenser Ruthenus. 

 Gm. Lin. 1485. 



X Phil. Trans, lvii. 354. A very small quantity is made from 

 this species, and that only designed as presents to great men, as 

 Mr. Forster assured me. 



§ The antients were acquainted with the fish that afforded this 

 substance. Pliny lib. xxxii. c. 7 '. mentions it under the name of 

 Icthyocolla, and says, that the glue that was produced from it 

 had the same title ; and afterwards adds, that it was made out of 



