To Mountain Tarn 



time and order, would come the hatching, and the 

 early larval changes. The needle-like and trans- 

 parent elvers would start on the momentous 

 journey. They would retrace the way the adults 

 had come would repass Cape Wrath coast 

 down the North Sea. And assuming the young 

 revisit the scene their elders left arrive some 

 day in March or April, at the mouth of the burn. 

 Thence they would crowd up the current to com- 

 plete the cycle. 



All this is very interesting. But, if a theory is 

 to be tried by its weakest part, then there are 

 one or two weaknesses. There is a marked 

 tendency in some observers to push their little 

 discoveries unduly. Scientific imagination is an 

 excellent thing, meant to span gaps and connect 

 what stand apart, but it must be skilfully used. 

 Were engineers to span chasms so, the structure 

 would collapse. Were business men so to specu- 

 late, they would be bankrupt in a week. In the 

 library of science is no place for an Arabian 

 Nights. 



The adult eels from the North Sea burn die 

 far out in the Atlantic, and leave their young in 

 the waste of waters. By what means do these 

 young find their way back ? Do they come, these 

 fifteen miles a day through the unknown, in the 

 directest route to an unknown destination, by 

 reason of something within that no one under- 

 stands ? Of course, anything is possible. But 



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