EELS 65 



paper was read before one of the Natural History 

 societies in Edinburgh giving accounts of the habits 

 of some tame eels that were kept in a pond. It 

 was said that in the autumn they invariably became 

 very restless, and took every opportunity of the 

 pond overflowing from rain to get out. It was noted 

 as a fact of interest that the eels on these occasions 

 were without exception found travelling over the 

 surface in an eastern direction, that being the 

 direction in which the sea lay. The observation 

 was the more interesting as it was unaccompanied 

 by any theories as to why the eels should want to 

 get to the sea. They were indeed supposed to 

 breed in the pond, and the fact that young eels 

 had been found there was given as proof of the truth 

 of this supposition. 



As the problem of the eel has been explained we 

 would appear to have in its life history the reverse 

 of that of the salmon. The interest of the eel is, 

 however, far greater. There are many points also 

 at which the parallelism entirely fails. It is a 

 curious feature, for instance, that the mature eel 

 never seems to return to fresh water after it revisits 

 the sea. All information at present seems to point 

 to the conclusion that the eels die after spawning in 

 the depths of the ocean. Unlike the salmon, the 

 eel never seems to make more than once in a life- 

 time the journey to meet its mate. Another inter- 

 esting point is that, although the span of existence 

 of the eel which, thus completes its life-cycle appears 

 to be comparatively short, it may apparently be 

 indefinitely prolonged in certain circumstances. 

 Eels that continue in fresh water remain barren. 

 But they will live indefinitely. They have been 

 5 



