66 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



have pushed them out of the market. Thirty-eight years 

 ago, when I was a student in Leipzig and Vienna, " baked 

 carp " was the only fish to be had in the dining-rooms we 

 frequented. Once a week there were fresh haddock, for 

 those who fancied them, in the celebrated Auerbach's 

 Keller. Now the railway and packing in ice have brought 

 North Sea fish to the centre of Europe, and created a 

 taste for that excellent food. Even on the Mediterranean 

 at Nice, I lately saw North Sea turbot, soles, and 

 haddock lying on the marble-slabs in the fish market 

 side by side with the handsome but small bass, mullet, 

 gurnards, and sea-bream of the local fishery, and the 

 carp, pike, trout, and eels of the fresh waters of the 

 South of France. 



Nevertheless the eel the common fresh- water eel 

 is still valued on the Continent, as is proved by the fact 

 that the German Imperial Government has recently sent 

 an important official of the Fisheries Department to 

 Gloucester in order to make extensive purchases of the 

 " elvers," or young eels which come up the river Severn 

 in millions at this season. The purpose of the German 

 fisheries officials is to place many hundred thousands of 

 these young eels in German rivers which are not so well 

 supplied by natural immigration as is the Severn, and 

 by so doing to increase the supply of well-grown eels 

 hereafter in the river fisheries of North Germany. 



This interesting practical attempt to increase the 

 supply of eels in Germany will be further appreciated 

 when I relate what has been discovered within the last 

 twenty years as to the reproduction, migrations, and 

 habits of the common fresh-water eel. It has been 

 known, time out of mind, that in the early months of 

 every year millions of young eels a little over two inches 

 in length, called " elvers " in English and " civelles " in 

 French, come up the estuaries of the rivers of Europe 



