BREEDING PLACES OF THE EEL SCHMIDT 



303 



The intermediate year-class — the I group— is, judging by the avail- 

 able data, to be fo'und during early summer in the central Atlantic, 

 between about 50° and 20° W. longitude, its average length being, 

 then, 50-55 mm. Our trading vessels caught them in May in (^uite 

 considerable numbers, and there can hardly be any doubt that it was 

 this I group to which the score of specimens taken by the M. Sars 

 expedition in June, 1910, to the south and west of the Azores, really 

 belonged (see p. 287). Later in summer I group larva? have been 

 taken both by the Marcjrethe and the Dcuna in the neighborhood of 

 the Azores, and in February by the TJior near Gibraltar, the average 

 length here being about 66-67 mm. 



Fig. 11. — European Eel (Anguilla vulgaris) 

 Curve showing rate of growth of larvae. 



We can now draw up the following table, showing : 



LarvoB of the European eel in early summer (June) 



Year class 



Group- - 



1 Group 



II Group- - 

 (III Group 



Central position 



Western A tlantic 



Central Atlantic. - 



Off Europe 



PYesh and braclsish waters of Europe 



Length in mm. 



7-37 .-. 



40-ahout 70- 

 60-88. 



Average 

 length 



Elvers just metamorphosed.) 



The eels, then, spawn in spring, their larvae take on an average 

 about two years to attain full larval size, and nearly three years 

 elapse before the metamorphosis is completed. The elvers, which 

 make their appearance on our shores in spring, will accordingly be, 

 on an average, about three years old. 



The illustration, Plate 6, Figure 2, shows the same as the table 

 above. 



