1907] Some Curious Facts About Fishes. 233 



siderable attention, but whilst in many respects the descriptions of 

 that great observer in connection with animals in general would 

 be worthy of a modern zoologist, the nonsense he wrote in en- 

 deavouring to solve the intricacies as to the propagation of the eel 

 is hardly worthy of notice ; yet his opinion swayed the minds of 

 naturalists for ages. 



As late as 1880, or twenty-six years ago, Jacoby wrote as 

 follows in treating of the eel : 



To a person not acquainted with the circumstances of the'case it must 

 seem astonishing-, and it is certainly somewhat humiliating- to men of science, 

 that a fish which is commoner in many parts of the world than any other fish, 

 the herring perhaps excepted, which is daily seen in the market and on the 

 table, has been able, in spite of the powerful aid of modern science, to shroud 

 the manner of its propagation, its bi>"th, and its death in darkness, which even 

 to the present day has not been completely dispelled/ 



Since then more light has come to the students of fishes as to 

 its propagation, and experts have sought to solve the problem, by 

 approaching it along several paths. 



More than two hundred years ago a group ot ribbon-shaped 

 fish-like creatures were discovered, all the known kinds of which 

 are marine, and it has been proved, within the last two decades, 

 that these are the larval forms, or what we may call the juvenile 

 forms, of different species of eels. 



The discovery of ripe eel eggs is due to the researches ot 

 Raffaele and Grassi, and dates no further back than 188S. or 18 

 years ago. 



Since 1900, or six years ago, Carl H. Eigenmann, of Bioom- 

 ington, Indiana, following in the paths opened out of these, and 

 other investigators, has further pursued the subject, and in a 

 pamphlet entitled : "The solution of the Eel question " sums up 

 his conclusions as follows : 



We now know, (i) that eels, both male and female, migrate to the ocean 

 during October to January ; (2) that these eels probably deposit the eggs that 

 are found on the surface during the following August to January ; (3) that the 

 eels do not ripen in shallow water, but the female, according to Grassi, at a 

 depth of five hundred meters ; (4, that the eggs of the eels float, according to 

 Grassi, at a great depth ; according to Raffaele and Eigenmann at the sur- 



*Carl H, Eigenmann: ' The Solution of the Eel Question.' Re-printed 

 from ' Transactions of the American Microscopical Society,' Aug., 1901, p. 5. 



