EELS AND THE EEL QUESTION. 429 



some worms, and some kinds of bees and wasps are, either of dew or 

 out of the corruption of the earth, seems to be made probable by the 

 barnacles and young goslings bred by the sun's heat and the rotten 

 planks of an old ship, and hatched of trees.' 



The passing of Aristotelianism and the revival of the sciences, in 

 the sixteenth century, was the occasion of this renewed interest in 

 eels. It was not, however, until the eighteenth century that sex in 

 eels was definitely recognized. Sancassini, a surgeon of Comacchio, 

 in Italy, visited the eel fisheries at that famous place of eels, and 

 chancing to be struck with the appearance of a large one, his pro- 

 fessional instinct led him to use his knife. The result caused him to 

 send it to Vallisneri at the University of Padua, who recognized with 

 enthusiasm the true ova and forthwith communicated this fact to the 

 Academy at Bologna. Vallisneri has since been appropriately honored 

 by the bestowal of his name upon a water plant well known to all — 

 eel-grass. But the immediate effect of his announcement was an eel 

 controversy. Eels became the burning topic of the hour among the 

 professors, the best-known names of the time are associated with the 

 discussion, and Bologna became the storm-center of the eel question. 

 Another specimen similar to the first increased the agitation. But Val- 

 salva, of anatomical fame, showed that there were certain appearances 

 in almost any fat and well-favored eel that strongly simulated what 

 Vallisneri had described, and in brief, hinted that the alleged eggs 

 were globules of uninteresting adipose. . An enthusiast offered a reward 

 for an eel that should contain undoubted eggs. Of course he got it. 

 His joy was short-lived, for a critical inspection showed that mercenary 

 considerations had led the fisherman to fill the specimen with foreign 

 eggs. This irreverence, and at this juncture, disturbed the seriousness 

 of the situation and the eel question slumbered for over half a century. 

 Then, again from Comacchio — whence emanated many of the errors 

 and the final truth — another eel falling into initiated hands marked 

 the crisis in the eel question. Among these privileged ones was the 

 famous Galvani, and in grave council assembled, he agreed with the 

 others that it was the counterpart of Vallisneri 's historic eel of seventy 

 years before, and was a precious specimen and must be sent to the 

 naturalist Mondini. And Mondini, in a publication which is classical, 

 first described in accurate terms the female eel, and lifted the eel ques- 

 tion out of the uncertain field of speculation to a basis of solid fact. 



Not immediately, however. Spallanzani a few years after visited 

 the Comacchio region for the sole purpose of studying eels and re- 

 ported a negative to Mondini 's observations, which accordingly suf- 

 fered a nearly total eclipse lasting many years. In 1850 Bathke was 

 able to describe an eel in full roe, the first that ever came into the 



