I sujipiiso thai thr time ftiy Ihc rr/'s trdiisitiiin lu n [/ro/ni/qt fifli ii-: idcutic irltli 

 Ihv tratwitiiin to Hs onhj lirei-diii(i-.sc(isf»h WheUwv tlie silver cel is mure 

 ptrougly coloured or f urther truusformed before the propagation I cannot 

 tell; biit tlie two tliings : tlie transition of the eel to a grown-up fi?li and tlie 

 transition to its only spawning-sea.son occur at the same time, therefore it can 

 l)e defended to eall tlie silver eel the eel in hreeding-dress. I suppose that the eel 

 lias only one spawning-period in its life, partly in analogy with what we know 

 of the Congcr, partly because nobody as yet has ever met with a spent eel; if a 

 seientitic man got hold of such a one it would snrely be proved immediately by 

 the state of the ovaries and, as far as tlie males are coucerned, by the large eyes. 



Till this day this has not happened, not even a fnlly mature eel has been 

 observed more closely (ep. onte). The silver eels on our shores are the most ma- 

 ture eels that are known ; and they do not, as the Conger, develop their sexual or- 

 gans, even when they are kept iu captivity for a long time. I have kept them in 

 caufs for more than half a year, and have not been able to trace the slightest devcl- 

 opmeut. On our shores, as well as on the German shores of the Baltic, ten thou- 

 sands of living silver eels are wintered yearly in reservoirs of running fresh water, 

 because the price of them rises in the course of wiiiter, These eels often go 

 from September — October of oue year till April- — May of the next, always with- 

 out taking any food and without losing more than a few per cent in weight du- 

 ring that time. If the sexual organs could l)e developed under these circum- 

 stances, it must certainly be observed now and then; but in spring, after half 

 a year's captivity, Ihere is no alteration to l)e seen worth noticing. 



That we know of no eels so near the s{)awning-season as the C(in(/en< olj- 

 served by Cnnningham, agrees also with the faet that the eggs of the eel, even in 

 the most developed specimens, are still small (0,2 — 0,2,;"""), and that the eggs 

 in the same ovary are not all of the same size. After all, it seems to me how- 

 ever, that there is notliing in what we know about the constructiou of the 

 ovary of the eel, which really does prove that the eel has but one spawning- 

 season in its life, but, on the other band, there is nothing against it neither 

 (ep. Trghom). As yet the facts seem cajiable of bcing explained in both ways. 



As to the quichie88 with ivhich the eel gets its hreeding-dress I sliall sav 

 only that while the last stages of the latter, the changes of colour, may pro- 

 ceed very quickly, in a few weeks, as I have said already, I cannot tell from 

 immediate observations how long time the whole transformation takcs; as however 

 almost all the silver eels disappear fi-oin our fjords in winter and reappearto- 

 wards tlie end of next summer, the transformation cannot last more than c. 

 •y, — 1 yoar iv genend. When the silver eels have gone away in autumn, we 



