70 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



in the water; they are adhesive and become attached to the roots and 

 stems of grass and other aquatic vegetation. The eggs develop rapidly 

 and in temperate regions hatch in about 12 days, and from 2 to 6 days in 

 the warm water of the south. (Cole, loc. cit.; Gill, Smithsonian, Misc. 

 Coll., 48, 1907, 195.) 



Food: Omnivorous, but vegetable matter normally forms the chief part 

 of its diet. Much of its food the carp obtains by rooting in the mud. 

 Often, however, they feed at the surface and eat small floating plants, 

 insects and their larvse, andvegetable material dropped or blown into 

 the water. 



Size: Growth depends on temperature and food supply. In temperate 

 regions it normally reaches 3 pounds in three years. Sometimes weighs 

 over 30 pounds. 



ANGUILLID^. The True Eels. 



33. Anguilla rostrata* (Rafinesque). Eel. 



Geog. Dist.: Gulf of St. Lawrence to Mexico. Ascends rivers east of 

 Rockies and south of Canada. 



Migrations: Adults move down the rivers into the ocean in the autumn 

 to spawn. The young move from salt water into fresh in spring. 

 Migration of young 2 to 3 inches long up Taunton, Warren, and 

 Kickamuit Rivers takes place from about April 15 to May 15. 



Season in R. I.: Abundant throughout the year in both fesh and salt 

 water, but are most numerous in the autumn when the females are 

 descending the rivers. Reported at Newport by LeSueur in 1S17. 

 About April 15, 1905, the eels in Greenwich Bay, R. I., for a period of 

 about three weeks, died in great numbers. 



Repkoduction: Spawning takes place in the ocean in winter. The place 

 of spawning is probably in water 500 fathoms or more deep, along the 

 steep slope where the continental plateau shelves off into the great 

 oceanic depths. The young when hatched are in a larval condition and 

 known as Leptocephali, which require nearly a year for the metamorph- 

 osis into young eels. In the meantime they gradually approach the 

 coast and enter the rivers in April and May, i. e., in the spring a year 

 after hatching. The young eels, two or three inches long, which can be 

 seen moving up the rivers in the spring are thus a year and two or three 

 months old. The mature eels which migrate down the rivers in the 

 autumn to spawn are probably eight to ten years old (Gemzoe). They 



* Baan. Science, May 28, 1909. 



