BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 101 



Another wonderful story was narrated by Dallmer.* 



A Fleiisbnrg- eel-smoker told him that once, in April, one of the 

 sacks iu which eels had been sent to him, after it had been emptied, 

 was put into the water with the others ; after having been tied up he 

 found, after eight to fourteen days, millions of living young eels from 

 one to two inches long. He thought that fertilized spawn had been 

 left in the bag which, in eight to fourteeu days, had developed into 

 fishes of one to two inches in length. A million of young eels of li inches 

 in length would take a space of 9,701 cubic iuches,which would be much 

 more than a sack could contain. Such a quantity of little fishes would 

 scarcely be able to find in a sack tied together at its mouth food enough 

 to enable them to grow from a very minute size (the eggs in the ovary 

 have been found only 0.23™°^ large, and may, perhaps, when laid, meas- 

 ure 0.5™™) in eight days to a length of from one to two inches ; let us, 

 however, suppose that the eel-smoker had confounded a hundred little 

 eels with as many millions, it could hardly, even then, happen that 

 these little animals in from eight to fourteen days could have grown to 

 160 times their original dimensions. The story would be much more 

 probable if it were supposed that the young eels in their wanderings 

 toward the fresh waters had, perhaps, found their way into a bag which 

 was not tied uj) at its mouth. 



In De La Blauchere's " Xouveau Dictionaire general de peche, Paris, 

 186S," occurs the following paragraph, without any indication of its 

 source : " Chenu and Desmarest do not hesitate to state that the eel 

 spawns upon the mud after a kind of copulation ; that the eggs remain, 

 adhering together, joined by a glutinous substance analogous to that 

 which connects the eggs of the fresh- water perch, and forms little pel- 

 lets or rounded globules. Each female, as they have succeeded in ob- 

 serving, produces annually many of these masses. The little fish soon 

 hatch out and remain, for the first few days after their birth, together 

 in these masses, but when they have reached a length of 4 or 5™™ they 

 shake off the bonds which hold them and soon ascend in great bodies 

 the streams and brooklets near which they find themselves." 



According to this, the eggs are deposited in masses of slime, inside of 

 which the young hatch out in the course of a few days, and a few days 

 later they shake themselves free and swim about at liberty. 



When and where these investigators have made such observations is 

 not to be found out from the " Dictionaire " ; at any rate, it is very hard 

 to understand how they have proved that the same female eel yearly 

 lays several sets of eggs. 



XVII. BENECKE on THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG EELS. 



Benecke gives the following thorough discussion of the movements of 

 young eels: 



The young eels, hatched out of the eggs at sea, doubtless live at the 



* Fisclie uud Fiscberei im Sussen Wasser, Segeberg, 1877. 



