3t>0 



EEL. 



parts of the country, believed to be in due time trans- | 

 lonned into the common eel, and sometimes also into ; 

 the lampern or lamprey, a belief in which there is of i 

 course no foundation. Even this is not the only ] 

 method in which, according to the belief of those who 

 have some pretensions to science, filaria have been 

 considered as young eels. The belief of eels bringing 

 forth their young alive was very general till more 

 than one-fourth of the present century had elapsed ; 

 but though it was tacitly concluded to be true, nobody 

 was in possession of very decided evidence of the 

 fact, as indeed they could not, the fact itself being 

 the other way. Eels are infested with many kinds 

 of entozoa or worms, which teed upon the substance of 

 their intestines. Of these, the most conspicuous is 

 the Eckinnrhynclius tcrcticollis, which insinuates its 

 head very often through the internal and middle coats 

 of the intestine, and there remains with the head 

 forming a round lump visible externally, and the body j 

 floating in the vessel. These are generally whitish 

 or yellowish in the colour, and are certainly very un- 

 like in shape to eels in any stage of their growth; but 

 still they have been described as the young of the 

 eel in a certain stage of their growth. A more pro- 

 bable species of young eel, in progress for delivery 

 alive, was, at least in so far as shape was concerned, 

 found in the intestinal Jilaria which infest the eels, 

 and are often found free in the vessel, and moving 

 about with considerable activity, and if in a fluid with 

 something like an eel-like wriggle. These were very 

 confidently regarded as being young eels ; and as the 

 sexual differences of the fishes had not been attended 

 to, the eel was set down as an animal of double sex, 

 bringing forth its young alive. 



In the foundation of this opinion, which was stated 

 with the greatest confidence, there was one little 

 matter which might have prevented the error. Those 

 living creatures were iuvariably found in the digestive 

 organs of the eel, and never in any separate cavily or 

 viscus, which appeared to be prepared by nature for 

 the bringing forward of a viviparous progeny, or even 

 maturing an oviparous one, such, for instance, as the 

 roe of a fish. Now, though there have been instances 

 of extra uterine impregnation, and also gestation, so 

 far at least in even what are considered the more 

 perfect of the warm-blooded animals, these have 

 always been properly considered as monstrosities or 

 departures from the course of nature, instead of being 

 parts of that course. Nor even in the most simply or- 

 ganised living creatures with which we are acquainted, 

 is there any instance of the young being produced 

 in the stomach, or in any part of the whole intestinal 

 canal. Indeed, if we consider for a moment, we may 

 see that the natural functions of this canal- are directly 

 opposed to, and therefore incompatible with any spe- 

 cit-s of reproduction. The whole of the' digestive 

 apparatus is a decomposing apparatus in respect of 

 every thing received into it ; and, in animals of vigo- 

 rous stomachs, there have been many instances of 

 partial decomposition of the viscns by its own action 

 in cases of great privation of food. It is true that 

 entozoa breed and live there, and that though we know 

 but little of the peculiar mode of their production, 

 iilaria are apt to breed in the cerus cavities of very 

 many animals ; but animals which breed and live in 

 such places, unless they undergo transformations 

 afterwards, are not fitted for living any where else, 

 and we could not by possibility imagine them to be 

 so metamorphosed as to assume the habits and per- 



form the functions of those very animals on which they 

 are parasitical. If these considerations liad been duly 

 weighed, they would have been decisive against the 

 possibility of eels being viviparous ; but it has often 

 happened in natural history, that a theory founded 

 upon even the most ridiculous prejudice, or even upon 

 a description attempted to be made fine by some one 

 possessed of more words than understanding, has been 

 maintained so resolutely as to defeat even the direct 

 observation of the maintainer.to say nothing about the 

 general analogy of nature, in which certain definite 

 functions always accompany a certain definite structure. 

 The peculiar migrations of eels, which are of too 

 striking a character to have been overlooked, even at 

 periods comparatively remote, might have led to 

 sounder conclusions with regard to the mode of their 

 reproduction ; but for a very long time no attempt 

 was made to generalise what was observed in this 

 way, or even to ascertain for what purposes fishes, 

 which at other times remain so silently at the bottom 

 of the waters, undertake journeys of very considerable 

 length, and pursue them with a determination rarely 

 equalled by any other race of animals. Here, also, a 

 general analogy of nature was lost sight of, which, if 

 followed out, would have certainly led to the facts of 

 the case. From time immemorial, it has been well 

 ascertained, that in the autumnal months, taking 

 October as the average of the British islands, eels 

 which have access to the streams of rivers, invariably 

 descend towards the sea. In ponds and stagnant 

 waters which have no permanent outlet, the autumnal 

 migration does not, of course, take place to the same 

 extent ; and yet if the pond is not too far removed 

 from running streams, it is highly probable that some 

 portion of the eels make their escape from it during 

 the autumnal rains. It seems, too, that those which 

 do not so escape, feel no small inconvenience from 

 the cold of shullo\v ponds, if the winter is at all 

 severe. We have understood from what we consider 

 as being undoubted authority, that in some ponds of 

 considerable extent, but no great depth, in Bedding- 

 ton Park, near Carshalton, in the county of Surrey, 

 the eels have not this means of escaping in the 

 autumn ; and that not many .years ago, a young man 

 lost his life from cold, in consequence of catching eels 

 in those ponds during the severe weather of a rigo- 

 rous winter. He used to break a hole in the ice, and 

 descend nearly up to his middle in the cold water ; 

 and the eels, appearing to be attracted by the warmth 

 of his body, came clustering round his feet and legs 

 in great numbers, so that he could take them with the 

 hand in almost any quantity, using a bit of sand 

 paper to give firmness to his grasp. He found this 

 kind of sport so very successful, that he pursued it, 

 until the water, from its cold, had so severe an effect 

 upon his own system, that he died. This is a very 

 curious fact in the natural history of eels, and shows 

 that, even if they can, as alleged in the case of the 

 Russian ones, endure being frozen without loss of life, 

 they are very sensitive, even to a very moderate 

 degree of heat, when shallow water is so far cooled 

 down as to be frozen over on the surface. In the 

 deeper lakes, which do not freeze even in our severest 

 winters, and from which an outlet is not easily found, 

 it is probable that the eels find a winter asylum in 

 the deeps, where they in all probability bury them- 

 selves in the mud during the inclement season ; and 

 it would be an interesting problem to ascertain whether 

 those eels which are cut off from regular migration 



