1892.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 245 



them has ever been found with eggs in it. What they call a differ- 

 ence of male and female in the ly/i/.o?, in that the so'called male 

 has the head larger and longer and the female small and pug-nosed, 

 is not a difference of sex but of species. All male fishes have -milt 

 (dopog) except the iy/J?.^^, but this has neither eggs nor milt. The 

 iyX^^'^i passes from the lakes into the sea. They are not produced 

 either from copulation or eggs. In some marshy lakes when the 

 Avater has all been drained off and the mud has been scraped out 

 the eels (iy/i^.s'.'^) make their appearance again w'hen the rain water 

 collects. They are not produced in the dry places, neither in the 

 permanent lakes, for they live and are nourished by the rain water. 

 Some persons suppose they are produced from the little worms 

 found in some iy/jAsc^. This is not true, but they are produced 

 from the so-called " entrails of the earth " (earth-worms), which 

 originate spontaneously in the mud and moist earth. Some (eels) 

 have already been seen coming out of these (earth-worms), and 

 others may be seen in those pulled to pieces. But in the sea and 

 in rivers such things are produced, especially where there is putre- 

 faction, in the sea weed of the sea, and about the margins of rivers 

 and ponds where the heat is intense. 



The iy/Jhj^ requires pure water and soon suffocates in foul water. 

 The eel-raisers (i//j/j)Tf>6<^<i'.) keep the w'ater constantly flowing in 

 and out of their tanks. Those who fish for eels (iy/J/.si'^') stir up 

 the water. The iy/J/.E'.g which have died do not come up and float 

 on the surface like most fish, for they have the stomach (y.ouia) 

 small. (Possibly y.oO.ia, literally hollow, here means swimming 

 bladder.) A few of them have fat, but most of them have not. They 

 live five or six days out of the water, more when they are northern, 

 fewer when southern. If transferred in spring from the lakes to 

 the tanks they die, but not so in the winter. They do not endure 

 violent changes of temperature, dying if plunged into cold water. 

 Some live seven or eight years. The river Ijyilt'.^ take food, 

 devouring one another and plants and roots, and whatever they 

 find in the mud. They feed mostly at night, but duriug the day 

 they retire into the depths. Those which men call the females are 

 the better ; but they call them so by mistake, they being of different 

 species. 



The word ty/J/Lw} is at least as old as Homer (II. 21, 203 and 353), 

 and is probably cognate with the Latin anguilla and English eel. 



