82 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



sented the same appearance as tliat wliicli was described by Yallisneri, 

 was sent from Comacchio to Bologna. The discussion continued, and 

 it soon came to be regarded by the scientific men of Bologna as a mat- 

 ter of extreme importance to find the true ovaries of the eel. Pietro 

 Molinelli offered to the fishermen of Comacchio a valuable reward if 

 they would bring liim a gravid eel. In 1752 he received from a fisher- 

 man a living eel with its belly much extended, which, when opened in 

 the presence of a friend, he found to be filled with eggs. Unfortunately 

 the joyful hoj)es which had been excited by this fortunate discovery 

 were bitterly disappointed when it was shown that the eel had been 

 cunningly opened by the fisherman and filled with the eggs of another 

 fish. The eel question came up again with somewhat more satisfactory 

 results wheu, in the year 1777, another eel was taken at Comacchio 

 which showed the same appearance as the two which had preceded it. 

 This eel was received by Prof. Cajetan Monti, who, being indisposed 

 and unable to carry on the investigation alone, sent a number of his 

 favorite pupils to a council at his house, among whom was the cele- 

 brated Camillo Galvani, the discoverer of galvanism. This eel was ex- 

 amined by them all and j)ronounced to be precisely similar to the one 

 which had been described by Vallisneri seventy years before. It was 

 unanimously decided that this precious specimen should be sent for ex- 

 haustive examination to the naturalist Mondini, who api)lied himself 

 with great zeal to the task, the results of which were published in May, 

 1777. The i)aper is entitled "De Anguillne ovariis," and was published 

 six years later in the transactions of the Bologna Academy.* Mondini 

 was satisfied that the supposed fish which Vallisneri described was 

 nothing but the swimming bladder of the eel in a diseased state, and 

 that the bodies supposed to be eggs were simply i^ostules in this dis- 

 eased tissue. In connection with this opiuion, however, Mondini gave, 

 and illustrated by magnificent plates, a good description and demon- 

 stration of the true ovaries of the eel, as found by himself. This work, 

 which in its beautiful i^lates illustrates also the eggs in a magnified fold 

 of the ovary, must be regarded as classical work, and it is an act of 

 historic justice to state that neither O. F. Miiller nor Rathke, but really 

 Carlo Mondini was the fiist discoverer, describer, and demonstrator of 

 the female organs of the eel, which had been sought for so many cen- 

 turies.! 



* De Bonouien.si Scieutarum et Arterium Institute atque Academia Commentarii. 

 Tomns VI. Bonoui;e, 1783, p. 406, seq. 



t Prof. G. B. Ercolaui, of Bologua, and also Crivelli and Maggi, iu Llieir essays pub- 

 lished in 1872, have rightly stated that Mondini's priority of discovery has been over- 

 looked in Germany. Neither Rathke nor Hohnbaum-Hornschech nor Schliiser have 

 mentioned his work. S. Nillson, in his Skaudinavisk Fauna, 1855, says nothing of 

 Mondini. He mentioned as the first discoverer of the ovaries O. F. Miiller, while 

 Cuvier, in his "Historie Maurelle do Poissons," assigning the honor rather to Rathke. 

 Th. von Siebold is the first to announce in his work, published iu 1863, Die Susswas- 

 serfischo Von Mitteluropa, page 349, that Mondini, almost contemporaneously with 



