THE STURGEONS AND STURGEON INDUSTRIES. 
233 
to me that, so far from that being the case, it has only thus been made possible to get 
something like an adequate notion of the remarkable changes through which these 
fishes pass, from the time the egg is fertilized until adolescence is reached. To this 
end I have had no hesitation in laying under contribution the labors of Knoch, Salen- 
sky, Parker, and Balfour, on the larval stages of the sterlet, in addition to what I have 
been able to glean in regard to the development of the common species. 
Upon reaching the fishing grounds I was first made aware of the great uulikeuess 
in the outward appearance of the young, from 5 inches to 3 feet in length, as compared 
with adults of the common species. This fact led me to examine somewhat closely 
into the visceral anatomy of the young, with the result of finding that the internal 
diflerences are as great as the external ones, as the accompanying plates displaying 
the viscera will testify. Between the youngest obtainable material and the embryos 
studied by Balfour, Knoch, Parker, and myself, there still remained a gap so great 
that, in the time allotted me for the completion of my work, it was impossible to 
obtain the required missing stages. Fortunately those gaps are almost completely 
bridged by the oldest larvae figured bj^ Parker, and the post-larval stages of the ster- 
let figured only two years ago by Zogratf. Zogratf’s figures, in conjunction with an 
old figure of a very young specimen of the gigantic Huso of eastern Europe, published 
in 1833, by Brandt and Batzeburg, enable us to trace very satisfactorily the history 
of the dermal armature of the genus. Comparisons of these disclose the fact that the 
dorsal row of scutes on the body appears first, then the lateral, and last of all the 
ventral rows. Other changes in outward appearance also occur, which can only be 
fully appreciated by reference to the figures which have been reproduced in the 
plates accompanying the text of this paper. These facts it seems to me are a sufficient 
warrant for my having drawn so largely from other sources. Moreover, since this 
report is intended, not simply for the information of naturalists, but more especially 
for those interested in the practical question of the propagation of the sturgeon as a 
source of food, I have felt it incumbent upon me to give as full and popular an 
account of its natural history as it was in my power to produce. Some of the most 
important literature on the subject being in German, French, and Russian, it is neces- 
sarily inaccessible to the general reader in this country. It has therefore been with 
much pleasure that I have here brought together the figures from such out-of-the-way 
or generally unreadable foreign authorities as will give such a reader a fair notion of 
the singular changes which these huge fishes undergo in the course of their lives. 
The illustrations of the adults are from photographs, reproduced by one of the many 
recent and highly successful photogravure processes. These give an adequate notion 
of the forms of the heads of the adults and an idea of the texture of the surface of the 
skin of the fresh fish such as is impossible except at the hands of an exceedingly skill- 
ful but expensive artist. I have been impelled also to offer these new illustrations of 
the common sturgeon in view of the fact that there are not now in existence half a 
dozen illustrations of the external appearances of this species that are trustworthy 
as to details. Nearly all the figures in existence are either poorly executed or taken 
from distorted or “stuffed” specimens. 
The illustrations of the young, 20 inches in length, are also photogravures, and serve 
to contrast the wide differences, in the form of the head especially, with that of the 
adults. The contrasts between these and the Aeipenser brevirostris figured along 
with them are equally striking, and the latter may be also profitably compared with 
