THE STORY OF THE COMMON EEL 75 



Our present knowledge of the romantic history of the 

 common eel of our own rivers we owe in large part to 

 the work done by the International Committee for the 

 Investigation of the North Sea. Who would ever have 

 imagined when he caught a wriggling eel, with a hook 

 and worm thrown into a stagnant pool in the Midlands 

 that the muddy creature was some five or six years ago 

 living as a glass-like leaf-shaped prodigy in the Atlantic 

 depths, a hundred miles from Ireland ? Who would have 

 dreamed that it had come all that long journey by its own 

 efforts, and would probably, if it had not been hooked, 

 have wriggled one summer's night out of the pond, across 

 wet meadows, into a ditch, and so to the river, and back 

 to the sea, and to the far-away orgy in the dark salt 

 waters of the ocean-floor, to the consummation of its 

 life and its strange, mysterious ending? 



There are two points of interest to be mentioned in 

 regard to the rivers Danube and Thames in connection 

 with eels. I have trustworthy reports of the very rare 

 occurrence of eels in streams connected with the Danube. 

 Since the young elvers do not ascend the Danube, where 

 do these rare specimens come from? There can be no 

 doubt that they have made their way individually into 

 the Danube " system " by migration through canals or 

 ditches from tributaries of the Rhine or the Elbe. A 

 similar explanation has to be offered of the eels which 

 at present inhabit the Thames. I cannot find any 

 evidence of the existence to-day of an "eel-fare" that 

 is, " a running up of elvers " in the river Thames. Prob- 

 ably about the same time as the foul poisoning of the 

 Thames water by London sewage and chemical works 

 put an end to the ascent of the salmon (about the year 

 1830), the entrance of the myriad swarm of young eels 

 in their annual procession from the sea also ceased. 

 The elvers were caught and made into fish-cakes in 



