RI?. 



Class IV. STURGEON. 127 



all the other forts of fturgeons, dried, falted, and 

 packed up clofe. The bed is faid to be made of 

 thofe of the Sterlet % a fmall fpecies frequent in the 

 Taik and Volga. Icthyocolla f , or ifing-glafs, is alfo 

 made of tht found of our filh, as well as that of the 

 others, but iht Beluga affords the bed J. 



The fturgeon grows to a great iize, to the j^^sci 

 length of eighteen feet, and to the weight of five 

 hundred pounds, but it is feldom taken in our 

 rivers of that bulk. The largeft we have known 

 caught in thofe of Great Britain weighed four 

 hundred and fixty pounds, which v/as taken about 

 two years ago in the EJk^ where they are more fre- 

 quently found than in our fouthern waters. 



* Strahlenherg's Hiji, Ruffia, ^^J. 



f Phil. Tranf. LVII. 354. A very fmall quantity is made- 

 from this fpecies, and that only deiigned as prefects to great 

 men, as Mr. Forjler affured me. 



X The antients were acquainted with the iifh that affords 

 cd this drug. Fliny lib. XXXII. c. 7. meations it under the 

 name oilcthyocolla, and fays, that the glue that was produced 

 from it had the fame title ; and afterwards adds, that it was 

 made out of the belly of the fifh. The Mario, faidloy Pliny 

 lib. IX. c. 15. to be found in the Danube^ 2ind the Boryjihe^tes, 

 was certainly of this genus, a cartilaginous fifh (nullis ojjibus 

 fpinifve interfitis) refembling a fmall porpefie (Porculo marino 

 Jimillimus ;J and very probably may be the fame with the Peh- 

 ga, which, according to Mr. Forjler ^ Phil. Tranf. LVII. 354, 

 has a Ihort blunt nofe, agreeing in that refped with the por=- 

 peiTe. 



The 



