218 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



73 —Till!: DREKDIIVC: HABIT!!* OF THE EEIi. 



' By J. IV. SAWYER. 



There are, no doubt, luaiiy different opinions regarding the breeding 

 habits of the eel. Having lived along the Delaware during the most 

 of my life, and having been engaged in fishing for this slippery cus- 

 tomer a great deal, I have made considerable investigations concerning 

 its habits, propagation, &c. 



A great many tell me that " they believe the lamper eel to be the mother 

 of all eels, as they tind eggs only in them." But this cannot be true, 

 for the different sexes are easily distinguishable in the lamper eel. Their 

 habits are not like those of the common eel. The female nests in shoal 

 water, spawning during the latter part of May; and in June, when we 

 find other eels done spawning, the little ones, two or three inches long, 

 are ascending the river bv millions. 



I have caught eels in large immbers from early spring until late in 

 the fall, and have always observed two kinds, which I believed to be 

 male and female, thus proving {to mi/ mind) the story, " that the female 

 rei)roduces her species without the aid of the male," to be false. The 

 male eel can be distinguished from the female by his large head on 

 a comparatively small trunk, quite poor, and upon examination inter- 

 nally we can find two longitudinal rows of a bright, glossy appearance, 

 and of a very compact tissue and rounded form. These are the sper- 

 matic organs. While in the water he is constantly moving from i^lace to 

 place. What I take to bo the female is the one with the smaller head, 

 generally quite fleshy, and, upon examination in the late fall, a whitish 

 substance can be found internally on each side, just in front of the vent, 

 and in which, upon breaking open, can be discovered small eggs, easily 

 seen with the naked eye. I accordingly believe that both the male and 

 the female possess their own natural sexual organs of fecundation and 

 re])rod notion. 



Eels descend tlie streams in the fall to places where there is deep water, 

 and where mud Mill serve them as a refuge during the winter. Here I 

 believe they spawn very early in spring, or in late winter, for as early 

 as May largo numbers of the little eels can be seen ascending the 

 streams. Some claim "eels all go to salt water to spawn." While some 

 of them do, I do not think they all do, for in the winter of 1830 or 1837 

 we had what is known as the January flood in the Delaware, and wagon- 

 loads of eels of all sizes were found on low places after the water had 

 subsided. One of my neighbors built a very tigiit dam, so constructed 

 as not to i)ermit any fish or eels to ascend. By this he overflowed quite 

 a tract of land, and jdacing some eels in tlie pond left them to breed. 

 After a period of fifteen or twenty years he placed an eel-weir in the 



