78 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION 



the niglit time into tlie fields, where he can find pease, beans, or lentils.' 

 This statement was contradicted in 1666 by Baldner,* who writes con- 

 cerning the eel: 'They eat fish, do not come on the land, and do not eat 

 pease, but remain in the water always, and nre nocturnal animals.' 



"Forthwith, new statements were made which tended to show the 

 actuality of the wanderings of the eels in the pea-patches. For instance, 

 Bach, in his ' Natural History of East and West Prussia,' published in 

 1784, maintained that eels frequently were caught in the pea-patches in 

 the vicinity of the water, where they fed upon the leaves or, according 

 to other accounts, ujion the pease themselves, and continues: 'These 

 movements explain the paradoxical fact that in Prussia and Pomerania 

 fish have been caught upon dry land by the use of the plough, for the 

 peasants, in warm nights when the eels are in search of the pease, 

 towards morning when it is not yet day, make furrows with the plough 

 between them and the water, and these are the nets in which the eels 

 are caught. Since the eel moves with ease only upon the grass, its 

 return to the water is cut off by the soil which has been thrown up. 

 The peasants consider it as a sign of approaching stormy weather when 

 the eels come out of the water upon dry land.'t 



"A person writes to me from Lyck : ' In storms they come out into the 

 pea-patches, and at this time people spread sand or ashes around, and 

 thus prevent their return.' Such tales are even now numerous in the 

 newspai^ers. 



" The small size of the gill-opening makes it possible for the eel to 

 live for a long time out of the water, and it is possible that in their 

 wanderings over moist meadows they may find places in which there 

 are snails and other desirable food. The explanation of their supposed 

 wanderings over the jjea-patches is, that the eels, wliich have been 

 found at different times in the fields or meadows, have been lost by 

 poachers, who threw them away in their flight. Many times dead eels 

 have been found upon meadows over which they have swam, the mead- 

 ows being flooded, and, in spite of the nearness of the water, have after- 

 wards been unable to return to it. 



"Although the activity and tendency among young eels to wander is 

 very great, yet we cannot believe in the wandering of adult eels over 

 wide stretches of land. According to Si^allanzani, in Comacchio, where 

 for many centuries an eel fishery of immense extent has been carried on, 

 these fish are found in numerous ponds and lagoons, the fishermen have 

 never yet seen an eel wandering over the laud; and once when, on 

 account of the drying up of the water, the eels died by the thousand, 



*Kecht natiirliche Beschreibung und Abmahlung cler Wasser-Vogel, Fischen, vier- 

 fussigen Thier, Insecten unci Gewirin, so bey Strassburg in den Wasseru sind, die ich 

 selber gescbossen und die Fisch gefangen, aucb alles in meiner Hand gebabt. Leon- 

 bard Baldner, Fiscber und Hagmeister in Strassburg gefertigt worden 1666. Manu 

 script. (Cited by von Siebold, Siisswasserfische von Mitteleuropa. Leipzig, 1863.) 



t A live and active eel, a few days since, was dug out from a deptb of five feet in the 

 soil of Exeter, N. H. — Gloucester Telegraph, Oct. 26, 1870. 



