*

with which its body is all over smeared: a substance that serves at once to keep it warm in its cold element, and also to keep its skin soft and pliant. This mucus is separated by two long lymphatic canals, that extend, on each side from the head to the tail, and that furnish it in great abundance. As to its intestines, it seems to have but one great bowel, running from the mouth to the vent, narrow at both ends, and wide in the middle.

So simple a conformation seems to imply an equal simplicity of appetite. In fact, the lamprey's food is either slime and water, or such small water insects as are scarcely perceivable. Perhaps its appetite may be more active at sea, of which it is properly a native; but when it comes up into our rivers, it is hardly perceived to devour any thing.

Its usual time of leaving the sea, which it is annually seen to do in order to spawn, is about the beginning of spring; and after a stay of a few months it returns again to the sea. Their preparation for spawning is peculiar; their manner is to make holes in the gravelly bottom of rivers; and on this occasion their sucking power is particularly serviceable; for if they meet with a stone of a considerable size, they will remove it and throw it out. Their young are produced from eggs in the manner of flat fish; the female remains near the place where they are excluded, and continues with them till they come forth. She is sometimes seen with her whole family playing about her; and after some time she conducts them in triumph back to the

ocean.

But some have not sufficient strength to return;

and these continue in the fresh water till they die. Indeed, the life of this fish, according to Rondeletius, who has given its history, is but of very short continuance; and a single brood is the extent of the female's fertility. As soon as she has returned after casting her eggs, she seems exhausted and flabby. She becomes old before her time; and two years is generally the limit of her existence.

However this may be, they are very indifferent eating after they have cast their eggs, and particularly at the approach of hot weather. The best season for them is the months of March, April, and May; and they are usually taken in nets with salmon, and sometimes in baskets at the bottom of the river. It has been an old custom, for the city of Gloucester annually to present the king with a lamprey-pye; and as the gift is made at Christmas, it is not without great difficulty the corporation can procure the proper quantity, though they give a guinea a-piece for taking them.

How much they were valued among the ancients, or a fish bearing some resemblance to them, appears from all the classics that have praised good living, or ridiculed gluttony. One story we are told of this fish, with which I will conclude its history. A senator of Rome, whose name does not deserve being transmitted to posterity, was famous for the delicacy of his lampreys. Tigelinus, Manucius, and all the celebrated epicures of Rome, were loud in his praises: no man's fish had such a flavour, was so nicely fed, or so exactly pickled. Augustus, hearing so much of this man's entertainments, desired to be his guest; and soon found that fame had

been just to his merits; the man had indeed very fine lampreys, and of an exquisite flavour. The emperor was desirous of knowing the method by which he fed his fish to so fine a relish; and the glutton, making no secret of his art, informed him that his way was to throw into his ponds such of his slaves as had at any time displeased him. Augustus, we are told, was not much pleased with his receipt, and instantly ordered all his ponds to be filled up. The story would have ended better, if he had ordered the owner to be flung in also.

CHAP. V.

The Sturgeon, and its Varieties.

THE Sturgeon, with a form as terrible and a body as large as the shark, is yet as harmless as the fish we have been just describing; incapable and unwilling to injure others, it flies from the smallest fishes, and generally falls a victim to its own timidity.

The sturgeon in its general form resembles a freshwater pike. The nose is long; the mouth is situated beneath, being small, and without jaw-bones or teeth. But, though it is so harmless and ill provided for war, the body is formidable enough to appearance. It is long, pentagonal, and covered with five rows of large bony knobs, one row on the back, and two on each side, and a number of fins to give it greater expedition. Of this fish there are three kinds; the Common Sturgeon, the Caviar Sturgeon,

and the Huso or Isinglass Fish. The first has eleven knobs or scales on the back; the second has fifteen ; and the latter thirteen on the back, and forty-three on the tail. These differences seem slight to us who only consider the animal's form; but those who consider its uses, find the distinction of considerable importance. The first is the sturgeon, the flesh of which is sent pickled into all parts of Europe. The second is the fish from the roe of which that noted I delicacy called caviar is made; and the third, besides supplying the caviar, furnishes also the valuable commodity of isinglass. They all grow to a very great size; and some of them have been found above eighteen feet long.*

There is not a country in Europe but what this fish visits at different seasons; it annually ascends the largest rivers to spawn, and propagates in an amazing number. The inhabitants along the banks of the Po, the Danube, and the Wolga, make great profit yearly of its incursions up the stream, and have their nets prepared for its reception. The sturgeon also is brought daily to the markets of Rome and Venice, and they are known to abound in the Mediterranean sea. Yet those fish that keep entirely either in salt or fresh water are but comparatively small. When the sturgeon enjoys the vicissitude of fresh and salt water, it is then that it grows to an enormous size, so as almost to rival even the whale ~ in magnitude.

[* Isinglass is prepared from various other fishes, but principally from the White Dolphin, or Belluga of North America. This well-known substance is made from the sound, or airbladder.]

Nor are we without frequent visits from this muchesteemed fish in England. It is often accidentally taken in our rivers in salmon nets, particularly in those parts that are not far remote from the sea. The largest we have heard of caught in Great Britain was a fish taken in the Eske, where they are most frequently found, which weighed four hundred and sixty pounds. An enormous size to those who have only seen our fresh-water fishes!...

North America also furnishes the sturgeon; their rivers, in May, June, and July, supply them in very great abundance. At that time they are seen sport-ing in the water, and leaping from its surface several yards into the air. When they fall again on their sides, the concussion is so violent, that the noise is heard, in still weather, at some miles distance.

But of all places where this animal is to be found, it appears no where in such numbers as in the lakes of Frischehaff and Curischaff, near the city of Pillau. In the rivers also that empty themselves into the Euxine Sea this fish is caught in great numbers, particularly at the mouth of the river Don. In all these places the fishermen regularly expect their arrival from the sea, and have their nets and salt ready prepared for their reception.

As the sturgeon is a harmless fish, and no way voracious, it is never caught by a bait in the ordinary manner of fishing, but always in nets. From the description given above of its mouth, it is not to be supposed that the sturgeon would swallow any hook capable of holding so large a bulk, and so strong a swimmer. In fact, it never attempts to seize any of the finny tribe, but lives by rooting at