Class IV. COMMON STURGEON. 165 



itself in the hot months : this shews it to be 

 a fish of a cold nature, which is confirmed 

 by the history of the European fish of this spe- 

 cies, given by Mr. Forster,* in his Essay on 

 the Volga, who relates that they are scarcely 

 ever found in that river in spring or summer, 

 but in vast quantities in autumn and winter, 

 when they crowd from the sea under the ice, 

 and are then taken in great numbers. 



Whether the acipenser is the sturgeon of the 

 moderns, may be doubted, otherwise Ovid 

 would never have spoke of it as a foreign fish : 



Tuque peregrinis, Acipenser, nolilis undis. 

 And thou, a fish in foreign seas renowned. 



it being well known that it is not uncommon 

 in the Mediterranean, and even in the mouth of 

 the Tiber, at certain seasons ; but this passage 

 leaves us as much in the dark as to the particu- 

 lar species intended by the word acipenser, as 

 the description Pliny has given us; for that 

 philosopher relates, that its scales are placed in 

 a contrary direction to those of other fish, being 

 turned towards the mouth, which disagrees with 

 the character of all that are known at present. 

 Whatever fish it might have been, it was cer- 

 tainly the same with the Flops, or Helops, as 



* Phil Trans. Ivii. 352. 



