EELS. 179 



Mr. Couch has seen them migrating in immense numbers up the river near his house, and 

 "from this date," he adds, "the passage is incessant during the summer, and continues 

 during part of the autumn." Mr. Couch sent me a little elver, about two inches and a half 

 long, on the 5th. of September, and he told me that all that have passed upw^ard from the 

 beginning of the year are of the same size. "From microscopic examination of the ova 

 embedded in the ovaria," the same writer observes, "I found the grains of very different size, 

 as if the shedding them must require a long time, which is proved by the unremitting passage 

 upwards of the young Eels for many months." The ova are scattered in the mud, and Mr. 

 Couch concludes that the spawn for the most part is deposited in the harbour, near low-water 

 mark, by Eels which lodge in the hollows of the stonework of the piers; but where there is 

 no shelter, the Eels are sometimes known to enter rivulets. 



That Eels breed in ponds from which there is no communication to the sea hardly admits 

 of a doubt. The following remark of Mr. Young, published in the Angler Naturalist, clearly 

 proves that Eels do not ahvays deposit their spawn in tidal water : — -"The rivers in Scotland," 

 he says, "were very low in the month of July, and I watched the motions of the Eels in 

 swarms (as I thought spawning) on the sand and gravel-banks in the river Shin. I should 

 have mentioned this circumstance to you while here, had I not wished to be more certain ; 

 but in October last, I got a few men and made them dig out one of the gravel-banks where 

 I had observed the Eels all together, and found it alive with young Eels, some of them 

 scarcely hatched, at the depth of from six to fifteen inches." 



Other observers have, from time to time, written in confirmation of this opinion ; and I 

 have examined a pond, the owner of which informed me that several years ago he mudded 

 it, and then put a few Eels into it : that these Eels bred there is certain, for some years 

 afterwards the pond was found to be pretty well stocked with Eels of different sizes; and 

 the nature of the ground is such that it would have been impossible for any Eels — making 

 all reasonable allowance for their powers of travelling over land — to have gained admission to 

 it from streams which had no communication whatever with the pond itself.* 



It is a most interesting spectacle to see the migration of the young Eels from the sea, 

 and wonderful are the instinctive efforts of these little creatures to surmount obstacles that 

 would at first view appear to present unconquerable difficulties. Mr. Anderson, upwards of a 

 century ago, described the young Eels as ascending the upright posts and gates of the 

 waterworks at Norwich until they came into the dam above. Ballyshannon is a very favour- 

 able place for the study of this curious subject, as we are informed by Dr. Davy, who makes 

 the following interesting remarks on Eels ascending rocks : — 



"Amicus. This is indeed a curious sight. Here are some [Eels] wriggling up a perpen- 

 dicular rock. How is it they accomplish this ? 



"PiscATOR. I believe they are able to accomplish it chiefly owing to two circumstances 

 • — their mucous glutinous surface favouring adhesion, and their form small and slender. None 

 of these Eels, you perceive, are more than two or three inches long, and slender in propor- 

 tion. Watch one that is now in progress, ascending that perpendicular rock. See how it 

 makes its tail a support, adhering by that, whilst it projects itself upwards; and this done, 

 now adhering by its trunk, it draws its tail after it. These are its steps, and the asperities 

 of the surface of the rock are its stairs favouring its exertions." 



Sir Humphry Davy, the celebrated author of Salinoiiia, and brother of the physiologist 

 whose words I have just quoted, was a witness of the ascent of these elvers at Ballyshannon, 

 at the end of July, 1823. He speaks of the mouth of the river under the fall being 

 "blackened by millions of little Eels about as long as the finger, which were constantly 



•■' I must, however, observe that I have never seen nor heard of the occurrence of elvers two or three inches 

 long in a pond to which there was no communication to any rivers. As young elvers are diurnal in their habits, 

 this is remarkable. 



