To Mountain Tarn 



Spawning was distant, where neither male nor 

 female was ripe. Why, then, start so early, if it 

 be not, that the mating and the spawning were 

 far off, many weeks and long miles away. Thus 

 unripe, they pass out, where the brown of the 

 autumn flood broadens and finally loses itself in 

 the blue of the deepening sea. 



The North Sea seemed tenantless. Amid its 

 multitude of eggs and larvae was no egg nor larva 

 of eel. A little light was thrown elsewhere. The 

 warring currents in the Straits of Messina cast 

 up ripe eels on the shore. It was concluded that 

 they spawned at depths of not less than 500 

 metres, under great pressure of water, and died 

 in the spawning. But it is a far cry to Messina. 



Further progress has been made. A second 

 area has been discovered. To the west of the 

 British Isles, where the water lies to the depth 

 of several thousand feet, was evidence of a great 

 company of spawning eels. The larvae are ribbon- 

 shaped, and named, from the smallness of their 

 heads, Leptocephali. In one sweep of the net as 

 many as seventy were caught. To the discoverer 

 of this promising area, it seemed as though he 

 had come upon the breeding ground of the eels 

 of Northern Europe. 



From the Baltic, from the rivers that rush, the 

 burns which trickle into the North Sea, the 

 descending eels launch out with a confidence that 

 allows of no hesitation. Through the English 



75 



