PREFATORY REMARKS. 3 



sixty years. If the taste of my reader will 

 make every allowance for the note-like style 

 of my composition, I feel quite assured 

 I shall be fully able to satisfy his judgment 

 that I have discovered the real origin of this 

 hitherto mysterious creature. 



The reader may at once be informed that 

 that the progenitor of the silver eel is a 

 small beetle. The study of its nature and 

 habits has occupied my attention for the 

 period above mentioned. That it truly is 

 the progenitor of the silver eel I feel fully 

 satisfied in my own mind, from a rigid and 

 extensive comparison of its structure and 

 habits with those of other insects. This 

 will be the reader's opinion too, I feel 

 assured, after he has fairly weighed the 

 array of facts brought before him, and 

 tested the conclusions naturally flowing 

 from them by actual experiment. As my 

 own mind is now fully made up on the 

 B 2 



