THE EEL. 341 



to speak of creatures of such low organisation doing things which are 

 simply agreeable and not necessary. Hence, if eels migrate, as I believe 

 they do, twice a year, it is necessary for them so to do, in order that 

 the highest development of the type may be induced and retained. 

 My own conviction, from circumstances which have come to my know- 

 ledge, is, that if eels be left in a circumscribed area of fresh water 

 throughout a large number of years without fresh introductions, not- 

 withstanding their power to breed therein, eventually the departure 

 from their inherited instinct of migration, weakens, and finally quells, 

 the reproductive powers, and the race becomes extinct with the death of 

 the last pair. 



But the assertion has been made by Mr. Pinkerton no mean authority 

 that only one species of eel migrates, in the following words : " The 

 grand distinction between the two species (the sharped-nosed and broad- 

 nosed eel) is that the sharp-nosed species is a migratory fish, while the 

 broad-nosed one is not. I admit that the latter has its summer and 

 winter quarters for eels are very susceptible of cold and electricity 

 and it wanders a good deal at night in search of prey, but it does not 

 migrate to the sea in large shoals, as the sharp-nosed species annually 

 does ... I have frequently visited the great eel fishing at Toone, on 

 the Lower Bann, where from fifty to sixty tons are annually caught in 

 the migrating season. As many as 70,000 eels have been taken at this 

 place in one night, all of the sharp-nosed species, with the slight excep- 

 tion of, perhaps, a dozen broad-noses that have been accidentally mixed 

 up with the shoal the exception thus confirming the rule." He goes 

 on to say, that on the night he visited the fishery, some 11,000 were 

 taken, and the people to whom they were sold would only take the 

 sharp-nosed variety. With the dexterity of eye and hand worthy of a 

 Eobin or a Frikel, these were selected by the counters, and only twelve 

 " broad-nosed " fish were found in the whole lot. 



Now this evidence is apparently too conclusive to resist, were it not for 

 one trifling fact. In Windsor Great Park there is a lake of some forty 

 acres, which formerly possessed an enormous stock of eels, ranging from 

 lib. to 51b. Of course the autumn floods roused these esls up every year, 

 and occasionally a hundredweight passed into the eel trap during the 

 night in their migrating voyage down stream. Out of the whole lot a 

 percentage of at least nine-tenths were broad-nosed eels. This I can state 

 on my own observation. 



Mr. Pinkerton' s instance in such case does not remain so impregnable 

 as before, and I would submit in addition the possibility of the parti- 

 cular fishery to which he refers being possessed of only the sharp-nosed 

 variety of eel. It is a well-known fact, that the broad-nosed is a grosser 



