THE EEL FAMILY 195 



the Straits of Messina they are taken in mid-water or near the 

 surface, and the oceanic forms have been taken at the surface. 

 But at Catania they were taken in fine-meshed seines which were 

 dragged along the bottom, and in the aquaria they hid away in 

 groups, making their way into the intricate crevices between and 

 under stones, or any other objects on the bottom or burrowing 

 into the sand : they also sought the darkest corners and re- 

 treated from the light. In England the Morris has been taken 

 by the prawn-net worked by hand on the shore, and also 

 occasionally at the surface. But neither in the Mediterranean 

 except at Messina, nor on the Atlantic coasts of Europe 

 have these creatures been taken in the fine-meshed tow-nets 

 so much used by naturalists in the sea. It seems evident, 

 therefore, that these curious creatures live naturally on the 

 sea bottom, but then the question immediately arises, Why 

 are they not taken in the dredge ? a question to which 

 we cannot at present give a satisfactory answer. The larvae 

 of the eel and conger must be very abundant somewhere. 

 At Messina the reason that the Leptocephali come so much 

 under observation is probably that the strong currents of that 

 strait, famous for its reefs and whirlpools among the ancients, 

 dislodge them from their retreats at the bottom and carry them 

 about in the eddies. There is no doubt however about the fact that 

 the oceanic forms are found at the surface, as a regular feature 

 of the surface captures, and it seems probable that these will be 

 found to belong to particular species of the eel family different 

 from those whose larvae have been studied in Sicily. 



The buoyant eggs which it is practically certain belong to 

 fishes of the eel family were described and figured by the Italian 

 naturalist Raffaele at the Zoological Station of Naples. They 

 resemble the eggs of the pilchard more closely than any others, 

 but are larger. They have a compound yolk composed through- 

 out of separate masses, and some have a single oil globule, 

 others 6 to more than 30. The space between the egg proper 

 and its enveloping membrane is large, as in the egg of the 

 pilchard. The size varied from 2 to more than 3 mm. (^V to 

 gy in.). That these ova belong to this family is proved by the 

 fact that the larvae hatched from them have, when the yolk is 

 absorbed, the peculiar and elongated body of the youngest 

 Leptocephali, observed by-Grassi and Calandruccio. But we 



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