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shark himseif is unable to devour them: we have seen some of them in England weigh above two hundred pounds; but that is nothing to their enormous bulk in other parts of the world. Labat tells us of a prodigious ray that was speared by the Negroes at Guadaloupe, which was thirteen feet eight inches broad, and above ten feet from the snout to the insertion of the tail. The tail itself was in proportion, for it was not less than fifteen feet long, twenty inches broad at its insertion, and tapering to a point. The body was two feet iu depth; the skin as thick as leather, and marked with spots; which spots, in all of this kind, are only glands that supply a mucous to lubricate and soften the skin. This enormous fish was utterly unfit to be eaten by the Europeans; but the Negroes chose out some of the nicest bits, and carefully salted them up as a most favourite provision.

Yet, large as they may seem, it is very probable that we have seen only the smallest of the kind; as they generally keep at the bottom, the largest of the kind are seldom seen; and, as they may probably have been growing for ages, the extent of their magnitude is unknown. It is generally supposed, however, that they are the largest inhabitants of the deep; and, were we to credit the Norway Bishop, there are some above a mile (?) over. But to suppose an animal of such magnitude is absurd; yet the over-stretching the supposition does not destroy the probability that animal of this tribe grow to an enormous size.

The ray generally chooses for its retreat such parts of the sea as have a black muddy bottom; the large ones keep at greater depths; but the smaller approach the shores, and feed upon whatever living animals they can surprise, or whatever putrid substances they meet with. As they are ravenous, they easily take the bait, yet will not touch it if it be taken up and kept up a day or two out of water. Almost all fish appear much more delicate with regard to a baited hook than their ordinary food. They appear by their manner to perceive the line and to dread it; but the impulse of their hunger is too great for their caution; and, even though they perceive the danger, if thoroughly hungry they devour the destructive morsel.

These fish generate in March and April, at which time only they are seen swimming near the surface of the water, several of the males pursuing one female. They adhere so fast together in coition, that the fishermen frequently draw up both together, though only one has been hooked. The females are prolific in the extreme degree there having been no less than three hundred eggs taken out of the body of a single ray. These eggs are covered with a tough horny substance, which they acquire in the womb; for before they descend into that, they are attached to the ovary pretty much in the same manner as in the body of a pullet. From this ovary, or egg-bag, as it is vulgarly called, the fish's eggs drop one by one into the womb, and there receive a shell by the concretion of the fluids of that organ. When come to the proper maturity they are excluded, but never above one or two at a time, and often at intervals of three or four hours. These eggs, or purses as the fishermen call them, are usually cast about the beginning of May, and they continue casting during the whole summer. In October, when their breeding ceases, they are exceed ingly poor and thin; but in November they begin to improve, and grow gradually better till May, when they are in the highest perfection.

It is chiefly during the winter season that our fishermen take them; but the Dutch, who are indefatigable, begin their operations earlier, and fish with better success than we. The method practised by the fishermen of Scarborough is thought to be the best among the English; and, as Mr. Pennant has given a very succinct account of it, I will take leave to present it to the reader.

"When they go out to fish, each person is provided with three lines; each man's lines are fairly coiled upon a flat, oblong piece of wicker-work, the hooks being baited and placed very regularly in the centre of the coil. Each line is furnished with two hundred and eighty hooks, at the distance of six feet two inches from each other. The hooks are fastened to lines of twisted horsehair twenty-seven inches in length.

"When fishing, there are always three men in each coble; and consequently nine of these lines are fastened together and used as one line, extending in length near three miles, and furnished with above two thousand five hundred hooks. An anchor and a buoy are fixed at the first end of the line, and one more at each end of each man's lines-in all, four anchors, and four buoys made of leather or cork. The line is always laid across the current. The tides of flood and ebb continue an equal time upon our coast, and, when undisturbed by winds, run each way about six hours. They are so rapid that the fishermen can only shoot and haul their lines at the turn of the tide; and therefore the lines always remain upon the ground about six hours. The same rapidity of tide prevents their using hand-lines; and, therefore, two of the people commonly wrap themselves in the sail and sleep, while the other keeps a strict look-out for fear of being run down by ships, and to observe the weather; for storms often rise so suddenly, that it is sometimes with extreme difficulty they escape to the shore, though they leave the lines behind them.

"The coble is twenty feet six inches long, and five feet extreme breadth. It is about one ton burthen, rowed with three pairs of oars, and admirably constructed for the purpose of encountering a mountainous sea. They hoist sail when the wind suits.

"The five-men-boat is forty feet long, fifteen broad, and twenty-five tons burthen. It is so called, though navigated by six men and a boy; because one of the men is hired to cook, and does not share in the profits of the other five. All our able fishermen go in these boats to the herring-fishery at Yarmouth the latter end of September, and return about the middle of November. The boats are laid up until the beginning of Lent, at which time they go off in them to the edge of the Dogger and other places, to fish for turbot, cod,' ling, skate, &c. They always take two cobles on board, and, when they come upon their ground, anchor the boat, throw out the cobles, and fish in the same manner as those do who go from the shore in a coble; with this difference only, that here each man is provided with double the quantity of lines, and, instead of waiting the return of the tide in the coble, returns to the boat and baits his other lines thus hawling one set and shooting another every turn of tide. They commonly run into the harbour twice a-week to deliver their fish. The five-menboat is decked at each end, but open in the middle, and has two long sails.

"The best bait for all kinds of fish is fresh herring cut in pieces of a proper size; and, notwithstanding what has been said to the contrary, they are taken there at any time in the winter, and all the spring, whenever the fishermen put down their nets for that purpose: the five-men-boats always take some nets for that end. Next to herrings for bait are the lesser lampreys. The next baits in esteem are small haddocks cut in pieces, sandworms, muscles, and limpets; and, lastly, when none of these can be found, they use bullocks' liver. The hooks used there are much smaller than those employed at Iceland and Newfoundland. Experience has shown that the larger fish will take a living small one upon the hook sooner than any bait that can be put on; therefore they use such as the fish can swallow. The hooks are two inches and a half long in the shank, and near an inch wide between the shank and the point. line is made of small cording, and is always tanned before it is used. All the rays and turbots are extremely

The

before it is used. All the rays and turbots are extremely delicate in their choice of baits: if a piece of herring or haddock has been twelve hours out of the sea, and then used as a bait, they will not touch it."

Such is the manner of fishing for those fish that usually keep near the bottom on the coasts of England; and Duhamel observes, that the best weather for succeeding is a half-calm, when the waves are just curled with a silent breeze.

But this extent of line, which runs, as we have seen, three miles along the bottom, is nothing to what the Italians throw out in the Mediterranean. Their fishing is carried on in a tartan, which is a vessel much larger than ours; and they bait a line of no less than twenty miles long, with above ten or twelve thousand hooks. This line is called the "parasina," and the fishing goes by that of the "pielago." This line is not regularly drawn six hours, as with us, but remains for some time in the sea; and it requires the space of twenty-four hours to take it up. By this apparatus they take rays, sharks, and other fish; some of which are above a thousand pounds' weight. When they have caught any of this magnitude they strike them through with a harpoon to bring them on board, and kill them as fast as they can.

This method of catching fish is obviously fatiguing and dangerous; but the value of the capture generally repays the pain. The skate and the thornback are very good food, and their size, which is from ten pounds to two hundred-weight, well rewards the trouble of fishing for them. But it sometimes happens that the lines are visited by very unwelcome intruders-by the rough ray, the fireflare, or the torpedo. To all these the fishermen have the most mortal antipathy; and, when discovered, shudder at the sight: however, they are not always so much upon their guard but that they sometimes feel the different resentments of this angry tribe, and, instead of a prize, find they have caught a vindictive enemy. When such is the case, they take care to throw them back into the sea with the swiftest expedition.

The rough ray inflicts but slight wounds with the prickles with which its whole body is furnished. To the ignorant it seems harmless, and a man would at first sight venture to take it in his hand without any apprehension; but he soon finds that there is not a single part of its body that is not armed with spines; and that there is no way of seizing the animal but by the little fin at the end of the tail.

But this animal is harmless when compared to the firefiare, which seems to be the dread of even the boldest and most experienced fishermen. The weapon with which Nature has armed this animal, which grows from the tail, and which we described as barbed and five inches long, has been an instrument of terror to the ancient fishermen as well as the modern; and they have delivered many tremendous fables of its astonishing effects. Pliny, Ælian, and Oppian have supplied it with a venom that affects even the inanimate creation: trees that are struck by it instantly lose their verdure, and rocks themselves are incapable of resisting the potent poison. The enchantress Circe armed her son with a spear headed with the spine of the trygon, as the most irresistible weapon she could furnish him witha weapon that soon after was to be the death of his own father.

"That spears and darts," says Mr. Pennant, "might in very early times have been headed with this bone instead of iron we have no doubt. The Americans head their arrows with the bones of fishes to this day; and from their hardness and sharpness they are no contempt ible weapons. But that this spine is possessed of those venomous qualities ascribed to it we have every reason to doubt; though some men of high reputation, and the whole body of fishermen, contend for its venomous effects. It is, in fact, a weapon of offence belonging to this

animal, and capable from its barbs of inflicting a very terrible wound, attended with dangerous symptoms; but it cannot be possessed of any poison, as the spine has no sheath to preserve the supposed venom on its surface, and the animal has no gland that separates the noxious fluid; besides, all those animals that are furnished with envenomed fangs or stings seem to have them strongly connected with their safety and existence; they never part with them; there is an apparatus of poison prepared in the body to accompany their exertions; and when the fangs or stings are taken away the animal languishes and dies. But it is otherwise with the spine of the fireflare; it is fixed to the tail, as a quill into the tail of a fowl, and is annually shed in the same manner; it may be necessary for the creature's defence, but it is no way necessary for its existence. The wound inflicted by an animal's tail has something terrible in the idea, and may from thence alone be sup posed to be fatal. From hence terror might have added poison to the pain, and called up imagined dangers: the Negroes universally believe that the sting is poisonous; but they never die of the wound; for, by opening the fish and laying it to the part injured it effects a speedy cure. The slightness of the remedy proves the innocence of the wound."

The torpedo is an animal of this kind, equally formidable and well known with the former; but the manner of its operating is to this hour a mystery to mankind. The body of this fish is almost circular, and thicker than others of the ray kind; the skin is soft, smooth, and of a yellowish colour, marked, as are all the kind, with large annular spots; the eyes are very small; the tail tapering to a point; and the weight of the fish from a quarter to fifteen pounds. Redi found one twenty-four pounds weight. To all outward appearance it is furnished with no extraordinary powers; it has no muscles formed for particularly great exertions-no internal confor mation perceptibly differing from the rest of its kind; yet such is that unaccountable power it possesses, that the instant it is touched it numbs not only the hand and arm, but sometimes also the whole body. The shock received, by all accounts, most resembles the stroke of an electrical machine-sudden, tingling, and painful. "The instant," says Kempfer, "I touched it with my hand I felt a terrible numbness in my arm, and as far up as the shoulder. Even if one treads upon it with the shoe on, it affects not only the leg but the whole thigh upwards. Those who touch it with the foot are seized with a stronger palpitation than even those who touched it with the hand. This numb ness bears no resemblance to that which we feel when a nerve is a long time pressed, and the foot is said to be asleep; it rather appears like a sudden vapour, which, passing through the pores in an instant, penetrates to the very springs of life, from whence it diffuses itself over the whole body, and gives real pain. The nerves are so affected, that the person struck imagines all the bones of his body, and particularly those of the limb that received the blow, are driven out of joint. All this is accompanied with an universal tremour, a sickness of the stomach, a general convulsion, a total sus pension of the faculties of the mind. In short," con tinues Kempfer, "such is the pain, that all the force of our promises and authority could not prevail upon a seaman to undergo the shock a second time. A Negro, indeed, who was standing by, readily undertook to touch the torpedo, and was seen to handle it without feeling any of its effects. He informed us, that his whole secret consisted in keeping in his breath; and we found upon trial that this method answered with ourselves. When we held in our breath the torpedo was harmless; but when we breathed ever so little its efficacy took place"

Kempfer has very well described the effects of this animal's shock; but succeeding experience has abun

dantly convinced us that holding in the breath no way guards against its violence. Those, therefore, who, depending on that receipt, should play with a torpedo, would soon find themselves painfully undeceived not but that this fish may be many times touched with perfect security; for it is not upon every occasion that it exerts its potency. Reaumur, who made several trials upon this animal, has at least convinced the world that it is not necessarily, but by an effort, that the torpedo numbs the hands of him that touches it. He tried several times, and could easily tell when the fish intended the stroke it flattened the back, raised the head and tail, and then, by a violent contraction in the opposite direction, struck with its back against the pressing finger, and the body, which before was flat, became humped and round.

But we must infer, as he has done, that the whole effect of this animal's exertions arise from the greatness of the blow which the fingers receive at the instant they are struck. We will, with him, allow that the stroke is very powerful, equal to that of a musket-ball, since he will have it so; but it is very well known that a blow, though never so great, on the points of the fingers, diffuses no numbness over the whole body: such a blow might break the ends of the fingers indeed, but would hardly numb the shoulder. Those blows that numb must be applied immediately to some great and leading nerve, or to a large surface of the body; a powerful stroke applied to the ends of the fingers will be excessively painful indeed, but the numbness will not reach beyond the fingers themselves. We must, therefore, look for another cause producing the powerful effects wrought by the torpedo.

Others have ascribed it to a tremulous motion which this animal is found to possess, somewhat resembling that of a horse's skin when stung by a fly. This operating under the touch with an amazing quickness of vibration, they suppose, produces the uneasy sensation described above-something similar to what we feel when we rub plush cloth against the grain. But the cause is quite disproportioned to the effect, and so much beyond our experience that this solution is as difficult as the wonder we want to explain.

The most probable solution seems to be, that the shock proceeds from an animal electricity, which this fish has some hidden power of storing up and producing on its most urgent occasions. The shocks are entirely similar; the duration of the pain is the same; but how the animal contrives to renew the charge-how it is prevented from evaporating it on contiguous objects how it is originally procured-these are difficulties which time alone can elucidate.

But to know even the effects is wisdom. Certain it is that the powers of this animal seem to decline with its vigour; for as its strength ceases, the force of the shock seems to diminish; till, at last, when the fish is dead, the whole power is destroyed, and it may be handled or eaten with perfect security: on the contrary, when immediately taken out of the sea its force is very great, and not only affects the hand, but if even touched with a stick the person finds himself sometimes affected. This power, however, is not to be extended to the degree that some would have us believe-as reaching the fishermen at the end of the line, or numbing fishes in the same pond. Godignus, in his history of Abyssinia, carries this quality to a most ridiculous excess; he tells us of one of these that was put into a basket among a number of dead fishes, and that the next morning the people, to their utter astonishment, perceived that the torpedo had actually numbed the dead fishes into life again.

To conclude, it is generally supposed that the female torpedo is much more powerful than the male. Lorenzini, who has made several experiments upon this animal, seems convinced that its power only resides in two

thin muscles that cover a part of the back. These he calls the trembling fibres; and he asserts that the animal may be touched with safety in any other part. It is now known, also, that there are more fish than this of the ray kind possessed of the numbing quality, which has acquired them the name of the torpedo. These are described by Atkins and Moore, and found in great abundance along the coasts of Africa. They are shaped like a mackarel, except that the head is much larger; the effects of these seem also to differ in some respects. Moore talks of keeping his hand upon the animal; which in the ray torpedo it is actually impossible to do. "There was no man in the company," says he, "that could bear to keep his hand on this animal the twentieth part of a minute, it gave him so great pain; but upon taking the hand away the numbness went off, and all was well again. This numbing quality continued in this torpedo even after it was dead; and the very skin was still possessed of its extraordinary power till it became dry." Condamine informs us of a fish possessed of the power of the torpedo of a shape very different from the former, and everyway resembling a lamprey. This animal, if touched by the hand, or even with a stick, instantly benumbs the hand and arm to the very shoulder; and sometimes the man falls down under the blow. These animals, therefore, must affect the nervous system in a different manner from the former, both with respect to the manner and the intention; but how this effect is wrought, we must be content to dismiss in obscurity.

CHAP. IV.

OF THE LAMPREY AND ITS AFFINITIES.

There is a species of the lamprey served up as a great delicacy among the modern Romans very different from ours. Whether theirs be the murena of the ancients I will not pretend to say; but there is nothing more certain than that our lamprey is not. The Roman lamprey agrees with the ancient fish in being kept in ponds, and considered by the luxurious as a very great delicacy.

The lamprey known among us is differently estimated according to the season in which it is caught, or the place where it has been fed. Those that leave the sea to deposit their spawn in fresh waters are the best; those that are entirely bred in our rivers, and that have never been at sea, are considered as much inferior to the former. Those that are taken in the months of March, April, or May, just upon their leaving the sea, are reckoned very good; those that are caught after they have cast their spawn are found to be flabby and of little value. Those caught in several of the rivers in Ireland the people will not venture to touch; those of the English Severn are considered as the most delicate of all other fish whatever.

The lamprey much resembles an eel in its general appearance, but is of a lighter colour, and rather of a clumsier make. It differs, however, in the mouth, which is round, and placed rather obliquely below the end of the nose. It more resembles the mouth of a leech than an eel; and the animal has a hole on the top of the head through which it spouts water, as in the cetaceous kind. There are seven holes on each side for respiration; and the fins are formed rather by a lengthening out of the skin than any set of bones or spines for that purpose. As the mouth is formed resembling that of a leech, so it has a property resembling that animal of sticking close to and sucking any body it is applied to. It is extraor dinary the power they have of adhering to stones, which they do so firmly as not to be drawn off without some difficuty. We are told of one that weighed but three pounds; and yet it stuck so firmly to a stone of

twelve pounds that it remained suspended at its mouth, from which it was separated with no small difficulty. This amazing power of suction is supposed to arise from the animal's exhausting the air within its body by the hole over the nose, while the mouth is closely fixed to the object, and permits no air to enter. It would be easy to determine the weight this animal is thus able to sustain; which will be equal to the weight of a column of air of equal diameter with the fish's mouth.

From some peculiarity of formation, this animal swims generally with its body as near as possible to the surface; and it might easily be drowned by being kept by force for any time under water. Muralto has given us the anatomy of this animal; but, in a very minute description, makes no mention of lungs. Yet I am very apt to suspect that two red glands, tissued with nerves, which he describes as lying towards the back of the head, are no other than the lungs of this animal. The absolute necessity it is under of breathing in the air convinces me that it must have lungs, though I do not know of any anatomist that has described them.

The adhesive quality in the lamprey may be in some measure increased by that flimsy substance 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 mucous 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 scarce 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 anything.

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 and worn out before her time; and two years is generally the limit

of her existence.

However this may be, they are very different 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 used to be the custom for the city of Gloucester annually to present the king with a lamprey-pie; and as the gift was made at Christmas, it was not without great difficulty the corporation procured the proper quantity, though they gave a guinea a piece for taking them.

But of all places where this animal is to be found, it appears nowhere 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.

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 de sirous 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 that had at any time dis pleased 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 jaws or teeth. But though it is so harmless and ill-provided for war, the body is formidable enough in 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 there are three kinds-the common sturgeon, the caviare 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 delicacy called caviare is made; and the third, besides supplying the caviare, furnishes also the valuable commodity of isinglass. The yall 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.

Nor are we without frequent visits from this muchesteemed fish in England. It is often accidentally taken in our rivers in salmon nets, and 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 freshwater 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 sporting 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.

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 the bottom of the sea, where it makes insects and sea-plants its whole subsistence. From this quality of floundering at the bottom it has received its name; which comes from the German verb "stoeren," signifying to wallow in the mud. That it lives upou no large animals is obvious to all those who cut it open, where nothing is found in its stomach but a kind of slimy substance, which has induced some to think it lives only upon water and air. From hence there is a German proverb, which is applied to a man who is extremely temperate when they say he is as moderate as a sturgeon. As the sturgeon is so temperate in its appetites, so is it equally timid in its nature. There would be scarce any method of taking it did not its natural desire of propagation induce it to incur so great a variety of dangers. The smallest fish is alone sufficient to terrify a shoal of sturgeons; for, being unfurnished with any weapons of defence, they are obliged to trust to their swiftness and their caution for security. Like all animals that do not make war upon others, sturgeons live in society among themselves, rather for the purpose of pleasure than from any power of mutual protection. Gesner even asserts that they are delighted with sounds of various kinds; and that he has seen them shoal together at the notes of a trumpet.

The usual time, as was said before, for the sturgeon to come up rivers to deposit its spawn is about the beginning of summer, when the fishermen of all great rivers make a regular preparation for its reception. At Pillau, particularly, the shores are formed into districts, and allotted to companies of fishermen, some of which are rented for about three hundred pounds a-year. The nets in which the sturgeon is caught are made of small cord, and placed across the mouth of the river, but in such a manner that, whether the tide ebbs or flows, the pouch of the net goes with the stream. The sturgeon thus caught while in the water is one of the strongest fish that swims, and often breaks the net to pieces that encloses it; but the instant it is raised with its head above water all its activity ceases; it is then a lifeless, spiritless lump, and suffers itself to be tamely dragged on shore. It has been found prudent, however, to draw it to shore gently; for, if excited by any unnecessary violence, it has been found to break the fishermen's legs with a blow of its tail. The most experienced fishers, therefore, when they have drawn it to the brink keep the head still elevated, which prevents its doing any mischief with the hinder part of the body: others, by a noose, fasten the head and the tail together; and thus, without immediately despatching it, bring it to the market, if there be one near, or keep it till their number is completed for exportation.

The flesh of this animal pickled is very well known at all the tables of Europe, and is even more prized in England than in any of the countries where it is usually caught. The fishermen have two different methods of preparing it. The one is by cutting it in long pieces lengthwise, and, having salted them, by hanging them up in the sun to dry: the fish thus prepared is sold in all the countries of the Levant, and supplies the want of better provision. The other method, which is usually practised in Holland, and along the shores of the Baltic, is to cut the sturgeon crosswise into short pieces, and put it into small barrels with a pickle made of salt and saumure. This is the sturgeon which is sold in England, and of which great quantities came from the North, until we gave encouragement to the importation of it from North America. From thence we are very well supplied; but it is said not with such good fish as those imported from the north of Europe.

A very great trade is also carried on with the roe of the sturgeon, preserved in a particular manner, and called caviare; it is made from the roe of all kinds of sturgeon, but particularly the second. This is much more in request in other countries of Europe than with us. To all these high-relished meats the appetite must be formed by degrees; and though formerly even in England it was very much in request at the politest tables, it is at present sunk entirely into disfuse. It is still, however, a considerable merchandise among the Turks, Greeks, and Venetians. Caviare somewhat resembles soft soap in consistence; but it is of a brown, uniform colour, and is eaten as cheese with bread. The manner of making it is this:-They take the spawn from the body of the sturgeon-for it is to be observed that the sturgeon differs from other cartilaginous fish, in that it has spawn, like a cod, and not eggs like a ray. They take the spawn, I say, and freeing it from the small membranes that connect it together, they wash it with vinegar, and afterwards spread it to dry upon a table; they then put it into a vessel with salt, breaking the spawn with their hands, and not with a pestle; this done, they put it into canvas bag, letting the liquor drain from it; lastly, they put it into a tub, with holes in the bottom, so that, if there be any moisture still remaining, it may run out: then it is pressed down, and covered up close for use.

But the nuso or isinglass-fish furnishes a still more valuable commodity. This fish is caught in great quantities in the Danube from the months of October to January: it is seldom under fifty pounds' weight, and often above four hundred: its flesh is soft, glutinous, and flabby; but it is sometimes salted, which makes it better tasted, and then it turns red like salmon. It is for the commodity it furnishes that it is chiefly taken. Isinglass is of a whiteish substance, inclining to yellow, done up into rolls, and so exported for use. It is very well known as serviceable, not only in medicine but many arts. The varnisher, the wine-merchant, and even the clothier know its uses; and very great sums are yearly expended upon this single article of commerce. The manner of making it is this:-They take the skin, the entrails, the fins, and the tails of this fish, and cut them into small pieces; these are left to macerate in a sufficient quantity of warm water, and they are all boiled shortly after with a slow fire, until they are dissolved and reduced to a jelly; this jelly is spread upon instruments made for the purpose, so that on being dried it assumes the form of parchment, and then it is rolled in the form which we see it in the shops.

This valuable commodity is principally furnished from Russia, where they prepare great quantities surprisingly cheap. Mr. Jackson, an ingenious countryman of our own, found out an obvious method of making a glue at home that answered all the purposes of isinglass; but when with the trouble of making it, and perhaps the art sput in practice to undersell him, he was,

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