~lb{) NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



wan, is most productive in the summer, a stray individual being very rarely taken 

 at other seasons. The sturgeons make their first appearance when the river breaks 

 up in the spring, and the lake is flooded with muddy water. The great rapid 

 which forms the discharge of the Saskatchewan into Lake Winipeg, appears quite 

 alive with these fish in the month of June, and some families of the natives resort 

 thither at that time to spear them with a harpoon, or grapple them with a strong 

 hook tied to a pole. Notwithstanding the great muscular power of the sturgeon 

 it is timid, and we have seen one so frightened by the paddling of a canoe, that it 

 ran its nose into the muddy bank, and was taken by a voyageur, who leaped upon 

 its back. The Saskatchewan sturgeon weighs from ten to twenty pounds, and 

 rarely attains the weight of sixty. June is the principal spawning time, but indi- 

 viduals filled with roe have been killed in every season of the year. As this fish 

 is not taken near Hudson's Bay, it is probable that it winters in Lake Winipeg 

 without visiting the sea, though we are not aware that there are any cascades in 

 Nelson's * River which it cannot surmount. On comparing a number of these 

 sturgeons with one another, considerable variety was perceived in the length and 

 acuteness of their snouts, and in the intensity of the colour of their bodies : the 

 older fish had smoother and flatter shields. I brought home specimens of the two 

 most distinct kinds in 1821, and on drawing up a few hasty notices of the fish for 

 the Appendix to the Narrative of Sir John Franklin's First Expedition, followed 

 the opinion of Forster in considering them to be specifically the same with the 

 acipenser Rutlienus, or sterlet of the Russian rivers. The specimens having gone 

 to decay, I have no means of correcting this reference, which is doubtless erroneous. 

 As far as I can recollect, the Saskatchewan sturgeon, known to the Crees by the 

 name of nameyoo, is very similar to one which exists on the west side of the Rooky 

 Mountains, which I shall now allude to more particularly. 



Two specimens of a sturgeon, which I have named acipenser transmontanus, 

 were sent to me from Fort Vancouver by Dr. Gairdner, accompanied by the follow- 

 ing notice: — "The species attains eleven feet in length, and a Aveight of six 

 hundred pounds f ; the small specimens sent home were chosen for their porta- 

 bility. It enters the Columbia early in March every year, and is caught as high 

 up as Fort Colville, notwithstanding the numerous intervening cataracts and 

 rapids, which seem to be insuperable barriers to a fish so sluggish in its movements. 



* The Saskatchewan loses its name when it falls into Lake Winipeg, whose superfluous waters are carried to Hudson's 

 Bay by Nelson's River. 



t The liuro is reported by Pallas to attain a weight of nearly three thousand pounds, and a length exceeding thirty 

 feet. 



