STUEGEON. 469 



solitary possession of a particrdar locality, and continue 

 there for years, defying all efforts at its capture. One 

 of these recluses had long fixed his quarters, and a few 

 years ago yet lived, at the embouchure of a small river 

 along the Baian coast, whom the sailors, do what they 

 would, could never take; his habit was to retire into 

 the ground-floor of a submarine villa, from whence it 

 was impossible to draw him, and thus successfully baffle 

 pursuit. 



Duly to estimate the value of this fish in a commer- 

 cial point of view, several things are to be taken iato 

 account ; as their size, number, extended range, the high 

 esteem in which the flesh is held, and the important 

 preparations made from their roes and swim-bladders. 

 Their size varies in. different species, but many of the 

 larger weigh a thousand pounds ; some even attain the 

 extraordinary length of twenty-four feet, and weigh 

 three thousand pounds : the head alone yields sometimes 

 not les» than a tun of oil : for numbers, it would be as 

 impossible to form any guess of the hordes that swarm 

 in the Red, Caspian, and Buxine Seas, or the legions 

 which every year ascend the principal rivers, as to count 

 the sand on their shores. In regard to range, they are 

 foimd over a large portion of the globe ; the following 

 rivers in Europe being particularly famed for them : the 

 Volga, Don, Dnieper, Danube, Po, Garonne, Loire, Mo- 

 selle, Seine, Rhine, Elbe, and Oder. Then the sturgeon is 

 the only creature eaten entire : beef and mutton reqidre 

 trimming and paring away superabundant fat, to say 

 nothing of horns, hides, hoofs, and other uneatable ap- 

 purtenances, reducing the Smithfield beast, when Soyer 

 has to deal with him, to greatly diminished dimensions. 

 With huso there is little waste ; he suffers scarcely any 

 diminution in bulk : of his dainty carcase, the whole is 

 prime meat, — flesh, blood, cartilage (for there are no 

 bones), ovaries, milt, liver, swim-bladder, skin, fin, tail. 



