ON THE STURGEON. 
335 
Asia. In the Don, the Wolga, and other rivers of European 
and Asiatic Russia, it is the object of an extensive commer- 
cial fishery, for the purpose of manufacturing isinglass and 
caviare, which last is the preserved roe of the female. 
In the rivers of this country, though less frequently, it is 
occasionally met with ; and the animal has been long known 
among the peasantry of Scotland, and, if I mistake not, of 
England, under the name of Stoor or Sture. This word, 
which is said to be of Gothic origin, is perhaps common to 
several of the ancient northern dialects, is the undoubted 
parent of the term Sturio^ which was unknown to the bet- 
ter periods of the Roman language, and may be regarded as 
one of the few genuine remains of the pure Anglo-Saxon 
common to the English and Lowland Scottish. It is cer- 
tain, at all events^ that a manifest affinity, or rather iden-^ 
tity, may be traced between it and the ©tor of the German 
and Lower Saxon, the ©tcutr of the Dutch, and the ®to|, 
of Sweden ; all of which seem to be sprung from the Cim- 
bric adjective ©to?, still extant in the Islandic, and signi- 
fying large or immense. Among the Roman authors, the 
sturgeon appears to be distinguished either by the name of 
Silurus or Acipenser ; and the more barbarous and equi- 
vocal denomination of Sturio was adopted by the Latin of 
the middle ages from some of the Celtic or Gothic nations^ 
to whom the animal was well known. 
The specimen which formed the subject of my examina= 
tion had been caught, near the Isle of May, in the Firth 
of Forth, by some fishermen, in whose nets, cast for catch- 
ing skate and other fish, it had been involved. The whole 
length of the animal measured from the snout to the tip of 
the tail 5 feet 11 inches. Its breadth at the shoulders was 
fully 14 inches. The length of the adult varies from 10 
to 15 feet ; and this, therefore, must have been a voung^ 
animal. 
