Capture of a Freshwater Eel in a Ripe Condition. 35 
upperside joins the brown, is a horizontal row of curved brown 
lines ; the outer margin of anterior wings and of the posterior 
wings as far as the tail is brown. 
Eixpanse of wings 14 inch. 
The underside resembles Loganita sriwa and malayica of 
Distant, both of which species have lately been received by 
me from North Borneo; but the length of the antenne and 
shape of the anterior wings of caudatus, irrespective of 
the neuration, preclude its being placed in that genus. 
1X.—WNote on the Capture of a Freshwater Eel in a Ripe 
Condition. By W. L. CALDERWOOD. 
A FEMALE eel (Anguilla vulgaris), measuring 294 inches in 
length, was captured on the 27th of December last. The 
capture was of some interest because the female was almost 
ready to spawn and was found about twelve miles south of the 
Eddystone, ¢. e. twenty miles from Rame Head, the nearest 
point of land. That a freshwater eel should be found so far 
out at sea, at the breeding-season, is not in itself very sur- 
prising, because it has long been conjectured that Anguilla 
spawns in salt water; but in the present state of 
knowledge any of the rare instances of the actual capture of 
a specimen in the condition of sexual maturity should be re- 
corded. 
The ovaries were pure white in colour, and corresponded 
exactly in appearance with those described and figured by Broek 
in 1881*. They extended the entire length of the abdominal 
cavity, showed no signsof any blood-supply, and when touched 
crumbled away most easily. ‘The ova were apparently quite 
ready to drop from the outer surfaces of the organs. Sections 
showed, however, that in each ripening ovum the nuclear 
membrane was still distinctly visible. ‘The nucleoli of largest 
size were arranged round the periphery, smaller bodies being 
found amongst the granular protoplasm of the nucleus. he 
substance of the ovum itself was richly stored with oil-glo- 
bules, giving the characteristic appearance known in the 
conger’s egg T. 
* Broek, “ Untersuchungen iiber die Geschlechtsorgane einiger Mu- 
raenoiden,” Mitt. zool. Stat. Neapel, Band ii. p. 415. 
+ Calderwood, ‘A Contribution to our Knowledge of the Ovary and 
Intraovarian Eges of Teleosts,” Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc. vol. ii. no. 4, 
pl. xi. 
