1881. J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



183 



nion barnyard fowl ; but I noticed some larger, 



and many tbat were smaller, In the stream. 



Their Return to the Sea. 



On the other hand, it is patent to every one 

 who has resided for any length of time on or 

 neiir the Susquehanna, and especially tliose 

 who were intercstt'd in or owned one of thiwe 

 traps called "fish baskets, that tlie eels de- 

 scend that stream in Vast numbers every 

 autumn, in the adult form, some of them very 

 large, although not so large as some found 

 local in ponds and dams. This is unquestion- 

 able ; nevertheless, it is equally true that tliey 

 may be, and are, caught with hook and line, 

 or otherwise, at any point along the river dur- 

 ing the entire season. How far up llie streams 

 they ascend, or what proportion of them de- 

 scend, has never been demonstrated, but it 

 seems very apparent that many of them be- 

 coming localized, and are speared through 

 holes in the ice during winter. It is some- 

 what singular that among all the piscatorial 

 experts of the Susquehanna, no one of them 

 has ever seen or caught eels from one to three 

 inches in length, save those which have been 

 seen and caught during their spring migra- 

 tions. Yarrell states that immense numbers 

 of these little eels ascend the Thames, (Eng- 

 land), in the .spring of the year, and the adults 

 descend in the autumn ; and, also, that thou- 

 .sands of the young are caught, and become a 

 most toothsome dish for epicures. It has oc- 

 curred to my mind that in ascending the 

 streams tliese little eels probably distribute 

 themselves along the route, wherever they 

 find a favorable feeding ground. 



A Youthful Experience. 



From fifty to sixty years ago the Lancaster 

 county shore of the Susquehanna was quite 

 different from what it is now, and this was 

 especially the case from the mouth of the 

 "Chickies " for miles westward. In front of 

 Marietta, below the river bank, were Hats of a 

 tough, bluish, unctuous muck, with many 

 " watersoaked " logs and tree stumps. In 

 these flats were concavities of various lengths 

 and depths, scooped out by the ice freshets. 

 When the waters of the river became low in 

 the summer, and tlie flats and bars appeared, 

 these concavities were so many ponds of water, 

 and often abounded in fishes of various kinds. 

 In one of the smallest ponds, in company with 

 other boys, we scooped out a number of eels 

 from three to five inches in length— as nearly 

 as I cfin now recollect— much smaller than 

 the kind we caught on the hook, and denomi- 

 nated " whip crackers. " Whether these bred 

 from spawn there, or whether they were a 

 colony left there by the upward migrating 

 hosts of the preceding spring, is more than 

 could be positively attested, but the probabili- 

 ties seem favorable to the latter proposition. 

 Naturaliss Still Puzzled. 



From these and other corroborative data 

 ichthyologists and writers on natural history 

 generally infer that eels descend the rivers to 

 the bays and seas and there bury themselves 

 in the muck or mud during the winter to ma- 

 ture their spawn, and that in the spring they 

 either spawn there or ascend the river to spawn, 

 but how far they ascend is not stated. My 

 observations on the young eels were made in 

 the month of May, about fifty miles from the 

 mouth of the Susquehauua. At that period 



there were no dams in that river, but eels 

 have been caught )n baskets, or traps, in the 

 fjusquchanna as abundantly since the era of 

 dams ivs they were before it, so that tliey 

 must have in some way wormed themselves 

 through or over the dams. But the greatest 

 I)uzzlo seems to be that no one has ever caught 

 an eel containing eggs, as they are seen in 

 other fishes. 'This may not be very remark- 

 able, if eels only mature their spawn in the 

 mud of bays and seas. Has any one ever de- 

 tected the eggs in a young shad, as it descend- 

 ed the stream in tlie autumn V The embryotic 

 ov>i may be there, without being visible to the 

 naked eye. But in those eels which become lo- 

 calized in ponds, mill dams or lakes, and which 

 are caught at nearly all seasons of tue year 

 we might naturally suppose that some would 

 be caught containing eggs, but so far as I am 

 aware, this has never yet occurred, unle.ss a 

 specimen caught three summers ago in the 

 Little Conestoga, and now in the museum of 

 the Linnsean Society, contains eggs. It was 

 assigned to Mr. Staufter to investigate the 

 case, but he has now passed away, and no one 

 else has taken up the matter. 



No Eel Eggs Erer Found. 



Dr. Packard, of Massachusetts, claims to 

 have discovered the spermatozoids of the male 

 eel, if, indeed, they are not all of one sex, as 

 some allege; but he discovered no ova which 

 those spermatozoids were designed to fertil- 

 ize. Millions of eels have been fished up out 

 of the bays and rivers, and taken to Pliiladel- 

 phia New York and Baltimore and there sold 

 in the shambles of the fish trader, but I have 

 never heard that they iiave found any with 

 eggs in tiiem; although they have been caught 

 in autumn, winter and spring. But it is not 

 likely that tho.se who so mechanically rip out 

 the intestines, and tear of the skins of their 

 writhing, squirming subjects, would give 

 ranch attention to the eel-egg question; and 

 yet, perhaps, they would be able to give you 

 any information you wanted, in relation to 

 the eggs of any other fish — particularly their 

 edible qualities. 



The question has been mooted that eels 

 may be ovoviviporous, that is they may bring 

 forth their fry perfectly formed and alive, and 

 that these are maturing whilst they are im- 

 bedded in the mud; bnt no -young eels have 

 been discovered any more than eggs have, so 

 that, the whole question is still anom.alous. If 

 there are two sexes, Doctor Packard seems 

 certainly to have discovered one of them, and 

 the other may be inferred. 



Their Power of Adaptation. 



In the summer of 1844 I vistied Hunter's 

 Lake, in Lycoming county, and with otliers, 

 remained their one week. During that time 

 three immense eeis were caught on an out- 

 line, and also a few pike. The eels hiul been 

 introdnced from the Sustjuehanna, or the 

 Muncy creek, about ten or twelve years previ- 

 ously, and the pike from elsewhere. This lake 

 never had been remarkable for the abundance 

 of either of these fishes. It was secluded, 

 but every summer a few were caught. From 

 the situation, and all the ciicurastanccs sur- 

 rounding the lake, they must have bred there, 

 but itis very probable that they devoured their 

 own young. I merely relate this to show that 

 eels, like many other animals, will adapt 



themselves to varying circumstances; but, 

 under whatever circumstances they are found, 

 very little has been discovered as to their 

 time and manner of breeding. From the vast 

 numbers of young eels which have been ob- 

 served at various times ascending our rivers, 

 the inferenco is that this animal must be ex- 

 ceedingly prolific and may void its spermato- 

 zoids similar to the oyster, in which each 

 atom, in time, becomes a living organism, 

 and that only a few, in proportion to the 

 whole number survive; and that these are not 

 easily detected in the wateis wliere procrea- 

 tion occurs, especially since the eel habitually 

 keeps near or on the bottom of the place it 

 inhabits. Those I observed swam low, near 

 the bottom, but were compelled to rise up over 

 a ledge of rock that extended out inio the 

 river as far as my vision could reach — i)er- 

 haps fifty feet— and where the water was 

 barely aii inch in deptli, but as limpid as 

 gla.ss. 



If what I have written does not satisfacto- 

 rily answer the question, " How do eelB 

 breed?" it may induce s:)me one to make mi- 

 nute and careful observations on the subject 

 — a subject that certainly needs more thor- 

 ough investigation than it has yet received, in 

 order to make it clear in all its details. 



BRUCHUS. 

 Br. E. W., Lam-outer, Pa.— The small 

 beetle you found so abundant in your room, a 

 few days ago, is a species of Brtuhus, belong- 

 ing to the •' weevil family." There are at 

 least twenty species belonging to the genus 

 Bruckus, conspicuous among which is the 

 common "pea-weevil," better Iniown under 

 the name of "pea-bug;" but it really does 

 not belong to the bug family, being a true 

 BeCle. These little beetles usually infest the 

 seeds of leguminous vegeUiliim. The Leou- 

 inNOSyE, or "Pulse family," is a very exten- 

 sive one, and embraces many subjects that 

 seem very diverse in their structure and 

 development ; and yet as to their fruit and 

 flowers, and also in the general arrangement 

 of their foliage, there seems to be a close 

 family relation tetween them. We would 

 hardly think of placing the common clover, 

 locu.st, wistaria, pea and ground-nut in one 

 family, and yet they all bear a similar flower, 

 and develop pods like the pea or bean, and 

 the seeds in these i)ods become infested with 

 difl'erent S[)ecie3 of Brurhus and allied genera. 

 There is no remedy to destroy them after 

 they once get into these seeds, without also 

 destroying the vitality of the seeds. If we know 

 just when the females deposit their eggs on 

 the young pods, almost any poisonous sub- 

 stance then applied would destroy the beetles 

 and their eggs. As near as we are able to 

 determine, without absolute comparison, the 

 species is the mu/ictdwi, of Thomas Say. 



BEAN WEEVIL. 

 Mr. J. Z., Lanm.^ler, P-j.— The insect 

 which .so numerously infests the seeds of your 

 Lima beans is the Bruchtis fahcE. or " Bean- 

 weevil." It is even a worse enemy than the 

 " Pea-weevil ;" because of that insect there is 

 seldom or never more than one individual in 

 a seed, and when the beetle evolves and va' 

 cates the seed, about eight out of every ten 

 will afterwards germinate and grow. It may 



