24 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



from eggs which are deposited not far south of my 

 first Sargasso objective, 30° North and 60° West. 

 At least two species of these tiny, new-born Lepto- 

 cepliali soon begin to swim slowly northward, 

 reaching the latitude of Bermuda within the first 

 year. They then separate into two mighty 

 streams. The one which swings westward develops 

 rather rapidly and soon after the first year has 

 changed into young eels or elvers, and, guided by 

 some instinct to which we have not the slightest 

 clue, seeks the various fresh-water streams and 

 rivers from Florida to Canada from which a year 

 or more before, their parent eels emerged. 



The offspring of European eels, on the contrary, 

 turn to the east and take three years to reach the 

 mouths of their ancestral rivers — be they British, 

 Spanish, French or Norwegian. Here they wrig- 

 gle slowly up the saltless currents, and after a 

 dozen years or so, play their part in this marvel- 

 lously intricate round of life. In a single haul of 

 a metre net at 30° North and 60° West it is jjossible 

 that we captured two Leptocepliali, — one of which 

 would have completed its growth in the farthest 

 tributary of Lake Ontario, and the other in some 

 little stream of the headwaters of the Rhine. 



Why should such sedentary creatures, spending 

 almost all their lives in a single reach of brook or 

 stream, suddenly be moved to traverse thousands 

 of miles of open ocean, braving voracious fish and 

 cetaceans to lay their eggs in the Sargasso Sea 

 close to an alien continent, when others of their 

 class successfully spawn under the nearest pebble? 



