62 FOOD OF CONGERS. 



No others showed any signs of being in spawn until 

 about a year and a-half after, when the largest specimen 

 began to swell very much ; in about six months it died, 

 weighing 691bs. About six months since the present 

 specimen, which had much outgrown its companions, 

 began to show signs of being in the same condition, and 

 it has succumbed also, weighing 901bs. We find these 

 congers are the most voracious creatures we keep ; they 

 attack and devour even dogfish, and these of a size that 

 one would think beyond their powers of swallowing. 

 We have quite given up keeping the piked dogfish with 

 them, and even the topers must be big ones, or down 

 they go. The only safe things are our big sturgeons, 

 monk-fish, skate, and the huge turbot we have reared 

 from little ones (these latter continue to grow). Congers 

 swallow their prey head first, as a rule, but when com- 

 mitting an act of cannibalism they swallow their small 

 brother often, if not always, tail first. If the youngster 

 is a bit too big, you may often see him three parts 

 swallowed, and when the big one is quite exhausted the 

 other will \^Tiggle out none the worse, except tjiat it is 

 scratched by the big one's teeth. We have had this 

 happen so often with the same fish that at last it has got 

 as ragged and full of scratches as it could hold ; some 

 day, however, one of the big ones has given a mighty 

 gulp, and once let its jaws close over the head of the 

 little one, and we see it no more." 



In the Appendix to the Sea Fishery Eeport, which has 

 just been published, I have given the weights of the 

 largest congers that have come under my notice. In 

 1878 Mr. Jackson, of Southport, sent me a conger 691bs. 

 weight, 6ft. 5in. in length, and 2ft. 5in. in girth. Mr. 

 Dunn, of Mevagissey, informs me that the largest con- 

 ger ever taken at Mevagissey was caught by Maxwell 



