I like this volume for other reasons too. Sturgeons and paddlefishes seem to exist, like most modern fishes, in altricial
and precocial forms. Becoming aware of this may ins pire future workers to pay closer attention to these lifeh
evolutionary phenomena^8. By doing so, the general usefulness of the theory of saltatory ontogeny^9 and of dichotomous
processes in both development and evolution^10 may become more widely accepted.Figure 2.Reconstructionofa method tocatchbeluga on theDanubeaccording to description in Aelianus byRohan-Csermak(1963)from
Balon (1967)^5.
The Guest Editors of this volume agreed in advance on the order listed on the title page, although equal editorial effort
should be recognized.VadimBirstein,RobertBoyle andJohnWaldmanconvened the 1994 conference that was the source
for the originaldrafts ofmost of the manuscripts included inthiscollection.WilliamBemis put the volume in finalshape;
he is also responsible for safeguardingthe standards of all contributions as the editorial representative ofEnvironmental
Biology of Fishes.Alice Klingenerprepared theindexwithsuggestions and helpfromWilliamBemis andVadimBirstein.
While this volume was being assembled a young scientific illustrator - Paul Vecsei of Montreal -became a sturgeon
fanatic (Figure 4) and travelled to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania to obtain material for illustrations. Our
second frontispiece and drawings reproduced on pp. 72,156,184, 208, 220, 230, 240, 290, 310, 384, 406 and 436 are only a few
selected examples of his ambitious plan to illustrate the sturgeons of the world. His resultsonthese pages may be com-
pared to samples of earlier, historical illustrations of sturgeons onthe leading pages ofthe three parts into which this
volume is divided.
Iwould like to thank Paul Vecsei for his timely completion of the illustrations, and René Mijs for his exceptional
understanding and patience. David Noakes, beside other help, is to be thanked for drawing my attention to the native
American source of the motto used in this Prelude, Steve Crawford for bringing to my attention andfor arranging permis-
sion from Adrian Nadjiwon, the Native American artist to use his painting as the first frontispiece, Tony Lelek for in-
formationonthe Hungarian-Russian enterprise at Komadi, and Christine Flegler-Balon for the many corrections and
administrativeassistance.
Guelph, 1 August 1996 Eugene K. Balon−
(^8) Bemis, W.E. & B. Kynard. 1997. Sturgeon rivers: and introduction to acipenseriformbiogeographyand lifehistory.Env. Biol.Fish. 48
(^9) Balon, E.K. 1986. Saltatory ontogeny and evolution. Rivista di Biologia/BiologyForum 79: 151-190 (in English and Italian).
(^10) Balon, E.K. 1989. The epigenetic mechanisms of bifurcation and alternative life-historystyles.pp. 467–501. In:M.N. Bruton (ed.)
(this volume).
Alternative Life-History Styles of Animals, Perspectives in Vertebrate Science 6,Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.