A MONSTER CONGER. 61 



water eel, wliicli are known to most persons as the "fat 

 of the eel." 



In March 1880,1 received the following most interest- 

 ing account from my friend Mr. C. L. Jackson, manag- 

 ing director of the Aquarium, Southport : — 



" I forward you one of our congers which has just 

 died, and as its size entitles it to be enrolled among the 

 distinguished members of the finny tribe, as represented 

 by their plaster busts in your piscatorial museum at 

 South Kensington, I thought a short account of its life 

 would be interesting to you. The fish is one of a num- 

 ber procured when we were first stocking the aquarium 

 five and a-half years since. Some of them were caught 

 at Fleetwood by Mr. Long and myself, while others were 

 bought. They were all very small, not exceeding 21bs or 

 3lbs. weight. The deep sea fishermen always said they 

 could not keep the large ones alive, so we had none but 

 little ones caught inshore. The fish now forwarded is 

 undoubtedly a female, and has died full of ova unable to 

 part with it. Its length when taken out of the tank was 

 6ft. 6in., girth 2ft. 6in., and weight 901bs. This enor- 

 mous weight has been obtained in five and a-half years, 

 and as it only weighed two or three pounds when just 

 caught, if we may take its subsequent growth as any 

 criterion of its former progress, w^e must conclude it 

 could not have been more than about a year old when 

 caught, ergo, from being hatched to attaining such 

 gigantic proportions only takes six and a-half to seven 

 years. 



*' There is something very curious about our shoal of 

 congers. One of oiu' lot died when we had them about 

 two years; it weighed 211bs., and was enormously dis- 

 tended with ova. I counted the ova and sent you par- 

 ticulars, which you have referred to on several occasions. 



