The Common Eel 



trying to make their way up stream. Professor Baird has esti- 

 mated that in the spring and summer one might see hundreds 

 of wagon loads of young eels at the foot of Niagara Falls, 

 crawling over the slippery rocks and squirming in the seething 

 whirlpools. 



In their feeding habits eels are chiefly scavengers, feeding 

 upon all manner of refuse, but preferring dead fish or other 

 animal matter. They are a very undesirable inmate of rivers 

 in which fish are caught in gillnets. It is said that the des- 

 truction of shad and herring by eels in the Susquehanna and 

 other Atlantic coastal streams is enormous. It is not infrequent 

 that when a gillnet is lifted the greater part of the catch con- 

 sists simply of heads and backbones, the remainder having been 

 devoured by myriads of eels in the short time the net was left 

 out. The spawning shad is considered by them a special 

 delicacy, and are often found emptied at the vent and com- 

 pletely gutted of the ovaries. Sometimes a shad, apparently full, 

 is found to contain several eels of considerable size. 



The commercial value of the common eel as a food-fish 

 has long been well established. It justly holds a high rank as 

 an article of food among all who are familiar with it, and in 

 the markets it always brings a good price. 



The eel is caught in all sorts of ways in traps, eel-pots, 

 seines, and on set-lines; and "bobbing for eels" is a classic in 

 angling methods. 



Body elongate, compressed behind, covered with imbedded 

 scales which are linear in form and placed obliquely, some of 

 them at right angles to the others; lateral line well developed; 

 head long and conical, 2 to 2^- in trunk; eye small, over angle 

 of mouth; teeth small, subequal, in bands on each jaw, and a 

 long patch on the vomer; tongue free at the tip; lower jaw 

 projecting ; gill-openings small and slit-like ; nostrils superior, 

 well separated, the anterior with a slight tube; distance from 

 front of dorsal to vent i- to 2 in head; pectoral fins 2f to 

 3$ in head Colour brown or yellow-olivaceous, nearly plain, 

 paler below, the colour, quite variable. 



The common eel reaches a considerable size. An example 

 taken in 1899 in Lake Maxinkuckee measured 43 inches in 

 length, and weighed 6J pounds. Examples 4 to 5 feet long 

 have been reported, though the average length of those caught 

 probably does not exceed 2\ to 3 feet. 



80 



