454 THE EEL FAMILY. 



found them about equal, but Cunningham is inclined to consider 

 that the females are predominant, a feature of fishes with 

 pelagic eggs, and certainly those tossed on shore during extremely 

 cold weather are, as a rule, females. This opinion is, however, 

 based upon the numerical superiority of females in a small 

 number of congers of both sexes, none exceeding 2 feet 6 inches 

 in length. He claims that 'all specimens over 2 feet 6 inches in 

 length are females, and therefore, if the sexes were approxi- 

 mately equal in number we should find the males more 

 numerous than the females amongst the specimens under 

 2 feet 6 inches'; but he has entirely overlooked another 

 consideration. He finds that a male may become sexually 

 mature as small as 18 inches in length and does not usually 

 exceed 2 feet 6 inches, in fact his largest was 2 feet 2 inches ; 

 hence, in any district, the congers under 2 feet 2 inches will be 

 immature males, mature or maturing males and immature 

 females. 'The observed fact that both males and females 

 cease to feed when their sexual organs begin to ripen, satis- 

 factorily explains why it is that ripe specimens have never 

 been obtained directly from the sea,' hence we may expect to 

 catch only the quite immature males and the females, in the 

 case under consideration, and leave unmolested the mature and 

 maturing males, which will form a great proportion if not a 

 majority of all those under 2 feet 6 inches. Under these 

 circumstances a predominance of females has yet to be 

 proved. 



As regards the ripe eggs of the conger we know nothing as 

 yet. Raffaele has described five unknown eggs which he 

 conjectures to be those of the Murcenidce, or eel family. They 

 are pelagic, and have a large perivitelline space. The larvae 

 hatched from them had a great number of muscle-segments and 

 had long teeth (see the Eel). These may be muraenoid eggs ; 

 whether one of them may be that of the conger has yet to be 

 shown, pelagic and demersal eggs occur indiscriminately 

 amongst the very nearest allies. 



Grassi has attempted to show that the larvae, hatched from 

 the eggs here referred to, have essentially the characters of 

 the Leptocephali mentioned below. He summarises the life- 



