1889.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 15 



St., Brooklyn, N. Y. ; John E. Weeks, M. D.,43 West iSth street. 

 New York : Richmond Lennox, M. D., 164 Montague St., Brook- 

 lyn, N. Y. 



o 



Micrococcus Tetragonus in a Tubercular Ulcer. — Dr. B. Van- 

 gel of Bucla-Pesth, on the microscopical examination of an ulcerated 

 nose in a phthisical subject, found, besides tubercle bacilli, some cocci, 

 which he cultivated, inoculating a white mouse with the culture. The 

 organs and blood, after being treated with Gram's stain, were found to 

 contain cocci grouped in fours and enclosed in a capsule — micrococcus 

 tetragonus, in fact — which Koch and Gaffky found in phthisical lung 

 cavities, but which, as far as Dr. Vangel is aware, had not hitherto been 

 found in other organs. What part this micrococcus plays in phthisis is 

 unknown. It would appear, however, that tissue in the process of break- 

 ing down forms a soil suitable for its development. The ulcer in which 

 the micrococcus tetragonus was found healed with suitable treatment, 



but the swelling and redness of the nose remained for a lono- time. 



Lancet, October 6, 1888. 



The Eggs of an Eel. 



By FRED. MATHER, 



COLD SPRING HARBOR, N. Y. 



Scientists have known that the eel is an egg-producing fish for a 

 dozen years or more, the Russian naturalist, Syrski, having first figured 

 the ovaries of the female and the spermaries of the male, but how and 

 where these minutes eggs are laid is still unknown. In October the eels 

 run down to salt water to breed, and in the spring the young eels ascend 

 the brooks and rivers in swarms. As they are then some two inches 

 long and of the size of a darning needle, it is evident that they must 

 have been hatched several weeks before, perhaps in February, to have 

 grown so much from so small an egg. 



The number of eggs in a six-pound eel in November (in what is 

 known to fisherman as ' eel fat,' but which are really the ovaries) is 

 fully 9,000,000. Under the microscope they measure 80 to the linear 

 inch, and taking one ovary and dividing it by means of the most deli- 

 cate scales known to science, I halved, quartered, and further divided 

 the mass seventeen times, until I had a section small enough to count 

 the eggs in it. This section repi'esented 1 = 131,072 of the total num- 

 ber, and three sections were laboriously counted under the microscope. 

 One of the sections contained 68 eggs, making the total S, 912,896 eggs. 

 The second held 77 eggs, or 10,092,544 in the whole. The third sec- 

 tion consisted of 71 , from which it would appear that there were 9,306,- 

 112 eggs in the eel. 



There have been many theories about the reproduction of the eel, 

 some of them being wildly absurd, such as their being hatched by 

 fresh-w T ater muscles, or that the lamprey was the female and the so- 

 called silver eel the male, etc. The fact is that the lamprey, miscalled 

 " lamper eel," is a form of life lower than that of the true fishes, to 

 which the eel belongs, and is a vertebrate with a cartilaginous skeleton 

 instead of a bony one, has its skull imperfectly developed, and has no 

 lower jaw. Superficially it appears like an eel, but is not nearly related 

 to it. 



