392 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



of their valuable resources; a humane people will not wittingly tolerate 

 such savagery. May the American people rouse before it is too late; may 

 they demonstrate that the public is both intelligent and humane; may they 

 irresistibly assert their interest in our wild life, and end forever the ex- 

 travagant, the unwarranted, the cruel and unpardonable persecution by 

 hunters and trappers, "sportsmen" and "vermin" killers, of useful, and for 

 the most part harmless wild creatures. 



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THE ITINERANT EEL * 

 PAUL BULLA 



Off the North American continent, southeast of Bermuda and northeast 

 of Puerto Rico, lies a tract of slowly swirling water known to mariners 

 as the Sargasso Sea. Here according to song and story the Gulf Stream 

 is born, and here far below the weed-choked surface is the breeding and 

 spawning grounds of our own fresh-water eel. 



Here these strange fish have their rendezvous. In this sea within a sea 

 they are born, and here, after years spent in far places, they return to repro- 

 duce themselves and die, for no spent eels have ever been seen, and adult 

 eels have never been known to run upstream. 



Of all the fish known to mankind, few have a more remarkable life his- 

 tory, and none have puzzled scientists for so long a time as have these snake- 

 like denizens of the rivers and lakes of Europe and America. Down through 

 the ages they have been a food delicacy in the European and Mediter- 

 ranean countries, but centuries passed before their migratory habits and 

 method of propagation were explained. Each autumn uncounted numbers 

 of these slimy creatures moved downstream to the sea, where many were 

 caught in the nets of fishermen awaiting their migration. But great numbers 

 avoided this fate and disappeared never to return. 



In the spring and summer of each succeeding year, tiny eel-hke creatures 

 appeared from somewhere in the vast ocean spaces and swarmed along the 

 coast of Europe and through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediter- 

 ranean. Later they entered the fresh-water streams and rivers that ran 

 down to the sea, penetrating to the interior where they grew to maturity. 

 Confusion further confounded the minds of scientists and simple fisherfolk 

 alike by the fact that eggs of unborn eels were never found in the bodies 

 of adults and males of the species were never seen. 



Many strange theories were advanced in explanation of how they were 

 produced, ranging from spontaneous generation to the transformation of 

 horsehairs into little eels. Aristotle, in the fourth century b. c, held that 



* Reprinted by permission of Natural History Magazine and the author. Copyright 

 1942, 



