THE STURGEON 217 



destruction, is also captured on the coasts of Great Britain and 

 Ireland, as examples are by no means uncommon in the fish- 

 mongers' shops of our great cities, a few coming into the hands 

 of the principal dealers every season. Yarrell mentions one 

 caught in a stake-net near Findhorn, in Scotland, in July 1833, 



Common Sturgeon. 



which measured eight feet six inches in length and weighed two 

 hundred and three pounds ; but in the Baltic specimens of a 

 length of eighteen feet and weighing a thousand pounds have 

 occasionally been captured. The body is long and slender from 

 the shoulders backward, somewhat pentagonal in shape, with five 

 longitudinal rows of flattened plates, with pointed central spines, 

 directed backwards, and the snout is tapering and beak-shaped, 

 the mouth small and toothless, so that the sturgeon, though 

 almost equalling the white shark in size, is of a much more 

 harmless character and formidable only to the crustaceans, small 

 fish, or soft animals, be meets with at the bottom in deep water, 

 beyond the ordinary reach of sea-nets. Hence he is rarely caught 

 in the open sea, but falls an easy prey to the cunning of man 

 when entering the friths, estuaries, and rivers for the purpose of 

 spawning. The sturgeon is a highly valuable fish not only for 

 its well-flavoured tlesh but also for its roe, which furnishes the 

 delicate caviar of commerce. The smallest but most highly 

 esteemed of the sturgeons is the Sterlet of the Volga, which 

 sometimes fetches such extravagant prices that Prince Potemkin 

 has been known to pay three hundred roubles for a single tureen 

 of sterlet-soup. 



While many of the numerous members of the salmon family 

 confine themselves to the rivulet or to the lake, others alter- 

 nate, like the sturgeons, between the river and the sea. Of these 

 the most remarkable is the noble fish which has given its name 

 to the whole tribe, and may justly be considered as its head, not 

 only in point of size but also for its wide-spread utility to man. 



