Peein ('S)T. U. BG Ey ON, 97 
the European fifh of this fpecies, given by Mr. 
Forfier*, in his Effay on the Volga, who relates that 
they are fcarce ever found. in that river in {pring or 
fummer, but in vaft quantities in autumn and win~ 
ter, when they crowd from the fea under the ice, 
and are then taken in great numbers. 
Whether the acipenfer is the fturgeon of the mo- 
derns, may be doubted, otherwife Ovid would ne- 
ver have {poke of it as a foreign fifh : 
Tuque peregrinis, Acipenfer, nobilis undis. 
And, thou, a fifh in foreign feas renowned. 
~ 
It being well-known that it is not uncommon in 
the Mediterranean, and even. in the mouth of the 
Tiber, at certain feafons; but this paflage leaves us 
as much in the dark as to the particular fpecies_in- 
tended, by the word acipenfer, as the defcription 
Pliny has given us ; for that philofopher relates, that 
its fcales are placed in a contrary direction to thofe 
of other fith, being turned towards. the mouth, which 
difagrees with the character of all that are known 
at prefent. Whatever fifh it might be, it was-cer- 
tainly the fame with the Elops, or Helops, as appears 
both from Piimy, and another line of the poet .be- 
fore-mentioned : 
Et pretiofus Helops nofiris incognitus undis. 
The pretious Helops ftranger to our feas. 
The fturgeon annually afcends our rivers, but in 
no. great numbers, and is taken by accident in the 
* Phil. Tranf. lvii. 352, 
falmon 
Migras 
tory. 
