266 
BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
varietal, or whether it is indicative of the existence of a different species in Florida can 
not be determined without specimens from there for comparison. It is barely possible, 
judging from the rarity of Acipenser brevirostris in the Delaware and its small size, that 
that species reaches its greatest development farther to the south. A. brevirostris is 
not of any commercial importance in the sturgeon industry of the Delaware, for, 
amongst the many hundreds of A. sturio which I saw at Delaware City, no specimens 
of A. brevirostris were taken either for the sake of their roes or the flesh. The 
shorter, plumper build, and blunt snouts of the Florida form noted by Mr. Elkington 
would agree very well with the view that the species there met with is the true 
A, brevirostris. 
The habit which the sturgeon has of jumping up out of the water at an angle and 
projecting the body through the air for some distance is probably of the same nature 
as that of the gar-pike, which rises to the surface for the purpose of taking air into 
the complex, lung-like air-bladder. The sturgeon has been known in leaping to jump 
into small boats, and in one instance, Mr. Reeves, of Delaware City, informed me that 
a large individual had actually jumped from the water high enough to go through 
one of the dead-lights, near the water’s edge, in the hull of a passing passenger, side- 
wheel steamer, and thus find itself an unexpected prisoner in the hold of the vessel, 
The habits of the female during the spawning season are probably somewhat i*' 
peculiar, and, it may be, quite characteristic. Those which had spawned and were 
observed by the writer exhibited a remarkably flabby, or empty appearance of the j 
abdomen. After their ova have been discharged the spent females are known amongst ! 
the sturgeon fishermen of Delaware City as “slunkers,” and are of no value to them 
for caviare, but for the flesh only. Later in the season these same spent roe, or “cow ; 
fishes,” as they are called in the local vernacular of the fishermen, recuperate and j 
become again quite plump, acquiring considerable additional weight. They are then 
more highly prized for their flesh than during the spawning season. 
The roe fishes seem to get rid of their eggs by rubbing the belly against hard 
places on the river bottom. This would seem to be the case judging from the inflamed 
appearance of the skin covering the abdomen of spent fishes. This irritation of the 
skin may arise as the result of an attrition of the abdominal walls against hard places , 
on the river bottom, or possibly it is induced by attrition with the surface of the ? 
bodies of the males, two or more of which are said to follow the females, according to : ; 
Russian writers, the males pressing against the abdomen of the female, thus favoring : 
the extrusion of the eggs and at the same time discharging their own milt to fertilize ; 
the ova. ■ 
As the season advances the spawning schools move upwards from the salt waters j 
of Delaware Bay and in the neighborhood of Fort Delaware and Delaware City, 45 
miles south of Philadelphia, where they pass into brackish or nearly fresh water. ; 
From this point southward 20 miles, and northward as many more, it is probable that ; 
a large part of the spawning now occurs. Those that escape the meshes of the hun- 
dreds of sturgeon nets which are every day stretched across their spawning grounds, 
go farther north to get rid of their burdens of ova. Many more are deprived by the , 
fishermen of the privilege of thus unburdening themselves, and are taken to the kill- '• 
ing and butchering floats at the wharves of the dealers along the river at various 
points where the nearly ripe roe is removed for the purpose of being made into . 
cavaire. 
