82 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



to the north. Mr. C. W. Graham Officer, B.Sc, told me recently 

 that an eel had been caught at Bourke, on the Darling. After 

 much discussion as to the nature of the animal, the postmaster, 

 who had lived on the coastal side of the divide in New South 

 Wales, saw it, and identified it as an eel. There was a tradition, 

 IVIr. Officer said, that one liad been caught years before, but this 

 was generally regarded with suspicion. So eels do not enter into 

 the Darling fauna. 



Quite recently a couple of letters on eels in the Murray have 

 appeared in Mr. Donald Macdonald's " Nature Notes " in the 

 Argus. A correspondent, writing from, I think, Kilmore, 

 mentioned that eels were found in the south-flowing streams, but 

 not in the north-flowing ones of his district, and suggested that the 

 Murray Cod would not let them occur there. The explanation 

 is highly improbable. Mr. Macdonald called for further informa- 

 tion as to eels in the Murray, especially in the lower reaches. 

 The following reply from a correspondent, which appeared in the 

 Argus of yth July, is strongly confirmatory of their non-occurrence 

 in the middle Murray : — 



" ' B.S.' (Eethanga), writing about the absence of eels in the 

 Murray, says : — ' I have lived on the river at different times and 

 places for the last fifty years, and know it from Albury to 

 VVentworth. I have fished and netted with the blacks in the 

 river and lagoons, and during all that time never heard of an eel 

 being seen or caught. A few lampreys have been taken, but they 

 are rare. In 1865, when snagging the river near Tocumwal, we 

 caught in a hollow log a fish like an eel, which was sent to Pro- 

 fessor M'Coy, and classed as a lamprey. It is probably in the 

 Museum still. It was shown to the blacks on the river, but they 

 all declared they had never seen one like it before. Later on 

 several were taken between Tocumwal and Swan Hill, all in old 

 snags, and their length varied up to 10 inches. The first one 

 caught was, I think, 15 inches or 18 inches long.' " 



But are eels absent from the lower waters of the Murray ? 

 They are common in all the streams of our south coast, and a 

 correspondent at Mount Garabier, in South Australia, tells me 

 they occur about the Mount, as far west as Lake Bonny. As 

 regards the Murray, he sent me a cutting from the Adelaide 

 Advertiser, of 24th May, 1905, which said that at Caloote a Mr. 

 Pope caught on the 22nd what was believed to be a conger eel, 

 weighing 19 lbs., and it was stated that such fish were uncommon 

 in the Murray. But this is a sea fish, and of a different genus 

 from the fresh-water eel. No fresh-water eel is known weighing as 

 much as 19 lbs. 



In reply to a request of mine for information, Mr. A. Zietz, the 

 Curator of the Adelaide Museum, says : — " Fresh-water eels do 

 not occur in South Australia, except in the Mount Gambier 



