Eels in Water Pipes and Their Migration. — By Watson 

 L. Bishop^ Superintendent of the Diirtmouth Water 

 Works, Halifax Co., I^ova Scotia. 



(Read 9th. April. 19(16) 



The early history of the eel (AnguiUa vulgaris) is involved 

 in mystery, l^o other common fish has so completely baffled 

 scientific investigators. The Greek poets jocosely remarked 

 "that since all children whose paternitv was doubtful were 

 ascribed to Jupiter, he must be considered the progenitor of the 

 eel." Aristotle emphatically stated that eels are spontaneously 

 produced from the mud and moist earth. About sixty years 

 ago, Martens, a famous naturalist stated, "Among all the 

 animals that surround us, the eel is the only one which has never 

 unveiled the secret of its propagation, even to the most per- 

 servering investigators." From that time to the present the 

 most persistent efl^orts have been made to solve the mystery of 

 the sexual characteristics of this fish and its reproduction. 



In 1896, G. B. Grassi, a professor in Rome, after four 

 years devoted exclusi^^ely to the study of this fish, and years of 

 previous inquiry, communicated a paper to the Royal Society of 

 London, which practically solved this mystery. He established 

 the fact that the eel reproduced itself only in very deep water, 

 at least 1500 feet in depth; that the eggs deposited, float there 

 in these great depths ; that the young when hatched take a form 

 not recogiiized previously as the young of the eel, but described 

 under the name Leptocephalus hrevirosiris , which proves to be 

 its larval form ; that this fish passes through a metamorphosis 

 in a few weeks, and then becomes the eel known to all when 

 about two inches in length ; that in a very short time it seeks 

 the fresh water to acquire sexual maturity and go on with 

 the work of reju'oduction ; that the parent eel then dies, and 



(640) 



