THE SHADS, THE EELS, AND THE LAMPREYS 295 
true that Dr. Gunther refused them a separate place in his 
system, but his reason for doing so is evidence of the darkness 
which prevailed as to the true character of these creatures. 
«We must come to the conclusion,” said he, “that the 
Leptocephalids are the offspring of various kinds of marine 
fishes, representing not a normal stage of development (larve), 
but an arrest of development at a very early period of their 
life. They continue to grow to a certain size without corre- 
sponding development of their internal organs, and perish 
without having attained the characters of the perfect animal.”* 
It was reserved for the Italian naturalist Grassi to demon- 
strate beyond all manner of doubt in 1896 that Leptocephalus 
was the larval form of the eel, produced from eggs laid in the 
sea, probably pelagic, or free-floating. 
In its next stage of growth most dwellers near the sea 
are well acquainted with the eel. It is in May and June that 
the remarkable phenomenon of “eel-fare”’ takes place, when 
the young eels, known as elvers, “fare” up from the sea 
in countless myriads. They are slender, semi-transparent 
creatures, two or three inches long, about the thickness of a 
small crowquill, and appear in such prodigious numbers that 
I have seen a Scottish trout-stream slate-coloured from bank 
to bank with the throng for a distance of twenty or thirty 
yards. It isa display of the prodigality of Nature, as well as 
of her heartlessness to the individual fate of her creatures ; for 
it must be only a very small percentage of elvers which escape 
the voracity of birds and fish at this tender age. Even man 
deigns to consider elvers a delicacy. Couch, the ichthyologist, 
was told by a Cornish fisherman that he had seen at Exeter 
four carts loaded with elvers for sale. They are fried in a 
form called elver-cakes, presenting, says Mr. Montagu, “a 
peculiar appearance from the number of little black eyes that 
bespangle them.” 
Now, albeit the connection between Lefrocephali and elvers 
* Introduction to the Study of Fishes, p. 181. 
