COMMON STUKGEON. 
159 
taken from an American newspaper, I have seen it announced 
that a lady’s riding-whip, twenty-one inches long and mounted 
with silver, had been found in the stomach of a Sturgeon of 
no large size. The fish might be of a different species from 
our own, but the fact seems to shew that not all of them 
are satisfied with merely molluscous food. 
The Common Sturgeon is generally valued at the tables of 
the rich; and indeed it appears that by some mistake the 
high reputation of the once celebrated Sterlet or Elops, has 
slid away to what, by all accounts, although stdl good., is a 
fish of lower (luality. IVhen taken in the Thames, within the 
jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor, it is usually judged a proper 
present for the Royal table; but although still regarded as a 
dainty, it is mentioned among other things by Fitz-Stephen, 
who wrote an account of London in the twelfth century, as 
being a dish to be obtained with ease at the then newly- 
erected hostelry in the city. 
Dr. Parnell, when closely studying the British fishes of the 
northern districts of our island, was led to believe that there 
were two British species of what had hitherto been treated 
as one; and from the prominent characters on which Ins 
distinction was built, he was led to give them the names of the 
Broad-nosed and the Narrow-nosed species. If individual 
examples are to be selected there is no doubt that such a 
division might be maintained; and accordingly, naturalists, whose 
observations at this early stage were limited to the few 
examples preserved in museums, came forward to confirm 
these distinctions, and to add others derived from the partic 
ular nature and arrangement of the bony plates covering the 
head. The more modern works on the natural history of 
fishes, contain iUustrative figures of this kind; but more ex- 
tended inquiry has gone far to throw doubt on the supposition 
that there is more than one British sjiecies of the Common 
Sturgeon. The Broad-headed and the Narrow-snouted varieties 
hi their extreme divergency differ greatly, and the latter 
appears to be the most numerous of the two. But there has 
been found every gradation of form among them, so that in 
many an instance it would be difficult to assign its proper 
place to the individual example; and with regard to the form 
and arrangement of the plates which cover the head, although 
