SOME RECENT OBSERVATIONS ON THE 

 FRESHWATER EEL 



., By Hugh M. Smith 



United States Commissioner of Fisheries 

 Washington, D. C. 



Mr. President, I fear that there is nothing I can say which 

 is not already known to you or which some other members 

 could not present in a much better way than I can — Profes- 

 sor Prince, for instance. 



The freshwater eel presents the very interesting anomaly 

 of a food fish that does not require any protection. There 

 may be some others — perhaps the carp is one of them, but 

 there are not many migratory food fishes in this country or 

 anywhere else in the civilized world that do not require pro- 

 tection. The freshwater eel is very much less important in 

 this country than it is in western Europe. Nevertheless, in 

 some of our own states, such as Pennsylvania, Maine and 

 Massachusetts, the eel supports a considerable fishery; as a 

 matter of fact there are eel fisheries all the way from Canada 

 to the Mississippi River. 



I have here what is probably the smallest specimen of 

 freshwater eel that any of you have ever seen. In spite of 

 all that has been learned about the eel, its migration, its 

 growth and spawning, it still remains a creature of mystery 

 to the layman, and some extraordinary views in regard to it 

 are entertained, as most of you are well aware. If you 

 consult the proceedings of the American Fisheries Society 

 of a dozen years ago you will find some discussion of new 

 observations of the eel made by Grassi in the Mediterranean. 

 You will find that we then thought we had learned nearly all 

 there was to be learned about the eel and we would have to 

 go to the Mediterranean in order to follow up the life history 

 of the eel — that is, the European eel. 



I may say that nearly all we know about the eel is the 



