60 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



snakes. They have been known to come up out of the water into 

 damp meadow^s, where they are sometimes found hiding under 

 stones near springs. 



They are among the most voracious of all carnivorous fishes, but 

 are chiefly scavengers in their feeding habits, eating all manner of 

 refuse, preferring, however, dead fish or other animal matter. They 

 sometimes devour fishes caught in gill-nets, and on the Atlantic 

 coast frequently mutilate shad, caught in the net, to get at their 

 roe. It is said by Jordan and Evermann that it frequently happens 

 that the greater part of a gill-net catch may consist, w^hen it is re- 

 moved, simply of the heads and backbones of fishes, the remainder 

 having been devoured by myriads of eels. They are nocturnal 

 feeders, "poking their noses into every imaginable hole in their 

 search for food." An eel in our aquarium at Ottawa, sought its 

 food only at night, and hid by day under a stone on the bottom of 

 the tank. 



The flesh of the eel is highly esteemed by many, and it always 

 brings a good price. In the Great Lake region and in the East eels 

 are often salted and smoked. They are also put up in tins with 

 jellies or a spiced sauce of vinegar. Their skins are used in England 

 for binding books and making whips. Eels are caught in traps and 

 eel-pots and on set-lines, and sometimes also with seines. 



The mode of reproduction and the development of their young 

 were unsolved riddles from the time of Aristotle to near the end of 

 the nineteenth century, but all essential facts in the life history 

 of the species are now^ w^ell understood. The principal difficulty 

 arose from the fact that the eel, although a fresh-water fish 

 during the greater part of its life, migrates to the sea to propagate, 

 spawning in salt water, usually on muddy banks off the mouths of 

 rivers. The young develop within two or three months, but they 

 are so unlike the adults that they were not recognized as belonging 

 even to the same genus. Spawning occurs in fall, and at the be- 

 ginning of the second spring the young find their wa}^ to the mouths 

 of rivers, which they ascend in considerable numbers, remaining in 

 fresh water until full grown, when they return to the sea. During 

 this migration, eels, like salmon and shad, do not take any food. 

 Their sexual organs do not mature until they have been some weeks 

 in salt water. After spawning both sexes die, neither males nor 

 females ever returning to fresh water the second time. The eel is 

 remarkably prolific, a single female 32 inches long having been 

 estimated to produce 10,700,000 eggs. 



