466 PEOSB HALIEUTICS. 



ther either helops or acipenser be designations for the 

 sturgeon. The weight of their objection rests mainly on 

 two lines of Ovid : one wherein the poet speaks of the 

 ' pretiosus helops/ 'stranger to our shores;' the other 

 where he calls acipenser 'a, noble foreigner;' but these 

 citations are by no means conclusive^ nor enough to up- 

 set much e contra evidence that these words really re- 

 present two different kinds of sturgeon. The mere cir- 

 cumstance of these fish being (as, assuming them stur- 

 geon, they are) of unusual occurrence in the Tiber, and 

 when caught there of very inferior quality, so as to have 

 induced the luxurious Romans to procure them from 

 foreign shores, sufficiently explains the epithet ' pere- 

 grinus,' used by the poet. 



There are at least four different sturgeons now clearly 

 defined by ichthyologists; three of the four are huge 

 fish, inhabiting the Don, the Danube, and the other 

 rivers debouching into the Caspian and Black Seas. 

 The mightiest of these giants (occasionally to be seen in 

 the Po) present a long back, stretching out in the adult 

 fish from twelve to fifteen feet; and attain sometimes 

 the enormous weight of three thousand pounds; no 

 power under that of a strong team of oxen-can drag this 

 monster from the river, when taken. 



Ausonius gives a fine description of these mighty fish, 

 passing up through the placid waters of the Moselle, 

 with the rapidity of a flight of arrows, and cleaving the 

 opposing current, — 



"Wlom stream and baak and silvery shoals admire, 



As on they glide, 

 Parting the rippling waters that recede 



On either side.* 



Cmn tranqmllos mohris in amne meatus, 

 Te virides ripse, te cEerula tnrba natantum, 

 Te hquidffi mirantur aquse, diffunditur alveo 

 iEstus, et extremi prociuTunt margine fluctus. — Auson. 



