From Fox's Earth 



this does not differ from the many baseless things 

 which modern thought killed out. Science, it 

 seems, may be a mystery-monger. For my part, 

 I should be extremely hard to convince that an 

 elver could find its way out of the Atlantic, much 

 less round the north of Scotland and into the 

 mouth of an obscure burn. 



When the elver grows into an eel, and the 

 autumn flood bears it down to the sea, it may 

 seek the deep waters where it was hatched : it is 

 just possible. More probable is it that a single 

 journey in the elver stage would prove insufficient. 



If the breeding ground for Northern Europe is 

 thus out in the Atlantic, some filling up is needful. 

 The story is not quite told. Between the elver 

 and the eel some chapters are wanting. In any 

 case, a mystery does not solve a mystery. 



Common sense comes to the aid of a somewhat 

 wild imagination. Possibly all the breeding eels 

 do not die. Enough may be left to guide the 

 young back. Or immature eels may accompany 

 the breeders, and so come and go more than 

 once. Anything seems reasonable, compared 

 with finding a way never before traversed. 



Migration is no more than unbroken habit. It 

 is the same in eels as in birds : it is not a mystery. 

 Did all the breeding sedge - warblers die, the 

 young would never leave our land, or, if they 

 did, would not know which way to turn, and 

 surely be lost The old birds guide ; the young 



78 



