68 



be given here, but they are at the best meagre and their 

 amplification should be one of the first and most import- 

 ant tasks to which the attention of Indian fishery officers 

 should be directed. Efficient work is impossible without 

 satisfactory and sufficient data and these we do not 

 possess. 



Eels. — Of these two species are recorded by Day * 

 Anguilla bicolor and A. bengalensis. These fish, the 

 veldngu and pdmbu min of Tamil districts, abound in 

 muddy creeks and estuaries on both the East and West 

 coasts. They are not often caught by fishermen and 

 then only by accident, as no native will fish for them 

 purposely owing to the very general objection of natives 

 of India to eat them owing to their snake-like form and 

 supposed absence of scales — the latter being specially 

 objectionable in the eyes of Muhammadans. The size 

 attained by eels in India appears fully as great as in 

 Europe and there can be little or no doubt that their 

 life-cycle and habits coincide with those of related species 

 in other parts of the world. 



The remarkable migration of young eels or elvers 

 from the sea into rivers and fresh-water lakes, their 

 sojourn there for 4, 5 and even 6 years, and their eventual 

 return to the sea to breed, are phenomena known for 

 centuries and utilized commercially as we have seen by 

 Italian fish farmers for at least 2,000 years. Where and 

 under what conditions the sexually mature eels congregate 

 and breed and what the larvae are like remained an 

 enigma until a few years ago. The researches of Grassi 

 and Calandruccio first solved the latter problem ; they 

 were able to demonstrate by direct experiment and other- 

 wise that certain forms of pelagic ribbon-shaped fish-like 

 creatures, previously known as Leptocephalids and con- 

 sidered to belong to a special and separate family, were 

 in reality the larvae of the common European eel. The 

 species of Leptocephalus so identified is the one named 

 L. brevirostris, Kaup. Eingenmann and Kennedy sub- 

 sequently established the identity of another from, L. 

 Grassiiy Eing. & Kenn., as the larva of the American 

 eel, Anguilla chrysypa. Leptocephalids have been found 

 by both Day and Thurston in Indian seas ; the latter 



* Fauna of British India — Fishes, London, 18S9. 



