MAY 123 



Dr. Gfinther, until Dr. Grassi solved the mystery of their 

 reproduction. 1 But the age to which eels attain, the 

 precise period of their growth at which the generative 

 impulse drives them to the sea, never to return, is still 

 wrapped in obscurity. Desmarest is said to have kept 

 one in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris for thirty-seven 

 years, beginning in 1838. It fed voraciously in summer, 

 but lay inert, without food, during the winter months. It 

 was said to be alive in 1875 ; but how such a succulent 

 fish escaped a violent death during the privations of the 

 siege of 1871 is not recorded; at least, it is not known 

 to me. 



Be their span of life what it may, no vertebrate animal 

 clings so closely to it while it lasts. It is said that in 

 every severe frost numbers of conger eels die in the 

 shallow water of Dover Strait, and are cast up on the 

 beach. But the conger, though so closely resembling the 

 fresh-water eel as to deceive very readily the unpractised 

 eye, belongs to a different genus, that of Conger, whereas 

 the fresh-water eel is Anguilla. The true eel has scales, 

 the conger has none, and the true eel seems able to bear 

 any reasonable degree of cold, even an unreasonable 

 degree, if the following story be true. It was told to me 

 by the late Peter Cameron, for very many years head- 

 keeper at Blair Drummond. He showed me an open 

 glade in a fir-wood, and said that he was crossing it one 

 frosty spring morning, the ground being white with hoar. 

 A lot of straight sticks lying about attracted his notice ; 

 he picked up one and found, to his amazement, it was a 

 large eel, frozen stiff. He collected an armful of these, 

 and flung them down on the kitchen floor before sitting 



1 Memories of the Months, Third Series, p. 274. 



