CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 
519 
ments other cords arranged round the hurdles. The agitation com- 
municated to the cord is sufficient to shut the gates behind; they are 
thus imprisoned by the dropping of the gate, which in falling sounds 
a bell to wake the watching fisherman on the scaffold, should he be 
asleep. The sturgeon-fisheries of the Yolga are thus admirably organ- 
ized. Onielin describes with some minuteness the sturgeon-fishing, 
during the winter, in the caverns and hollows of the river-hanks near 
Astrakhan, in the estuary of the Yolga. A great number of fisher- 
men are assembled there with their boats. The flotilla approaches 
the retreats to which the fishes have betaken themselves, the nets 
are skilfully arranged all round them, and all at once the whole mass 
of fishermen join in a great cry, at which the frightened fishes rush 
from their concealment and throw themselves into the nets spread for 
them. 
The size of the fish, the nourishing properties of its flesh, its healthy 
and agreeable taste, and the immense quantity of eggs produced, have 
a wonderful power in exciting the commerce and industry of the in- 
habitants of these countries. In order to give some idea of the abun- 
dance of the eggs of the sturgeon, it is stated that the weight of two 
ovaries equalled nearly a third of the weight of the whole animal ; in 
other words, these ovaries weighed nearly eight hundred pounds in a 
female whose weight was two thousand and eight hundred pounds. 
It is with these eggs chiefly, but not altogether, that caviare is pre- 
pared, and the article is more or less relished according to the state of 
the eggs. The display of caviare, as exhibited at the Universal Expo- 
sition of Paris during the year 1867, will remain to those who have 
visited it one of the most lasting recollections. 
