226 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
streams to accomplish their growth in the sweet waters. The 
mode of procreation of eels, which for ages had been an enigma, 
has now at length been completely elucidated by Professor 
Rathke, who discovered that the eggs, which are of microscopie 
smallness, so as to be undistinguishable by the naked eye from 
the fat in which they lie imbedded, are expelled through an 
opening hardly large enough to admit the point of a needle. 
The energy of the salmon in swimming stream-upwards for 
hundreds and hundreds of miles, and bounding over rapids and 
cataracts, is truly wonderful, but the instinctive efforts of the 
little eels or elvers to surmount obstacles that seem quite out of 
proportion to their strength are no less admirable. Mr. An- 
derson, upwards of a century ago, described the young eels as 
ascending the upright posts and gates of the waterworks at 
Norwich until they came into the dam above; and Sir Hum- 
phry Davy, who was witness of a vast migration of elvers at 
Ballyshannon, speaks of the mouth of the river under the fall as 
blackened by millions of little eels. “Thousands,” he adds, 
“died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder 
for others to make their way; and I saw some ascending even 
perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or 
adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is 
the energy of these little animals that they continue to find 
their way in immense numbers to Loch Erne. Even the mighty 
fall of Schaffhausen (which stops the salmon) does not prevent 
them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where 
I have seen many very large eels.” After the little eels have 
gained the summit of a fall, they rest for a while with their 
heads protruded into the stream. They then urge themselves 
forward, taking advantage of every projecting stone or slack 
water, and never get carried back by the current. Myriads are 
destroyed on the way by birds or fishes; but, as usual, their 
ereatest enemy is man, who not only devours whole cart-loads of 
little eels not larger than a knitting-needle, frying them into 
cakes, which are said to be delicious, though rather queer- 
looking from the number of little eyes with which they are 
bespangled, but after getting tired of eating them, actually 
feeds his pigs with them, or even uses them for manure. A 
prodigal waste which should be looked after, as these little 
eels would soon increase their weight, and consequently their 
