OI:SI.I;VATIONS or .i.\coi;v. 





856 



lion of llit- presence at ( 'omacchio. and the behavior of Eels with organs of Syrski. I can answer 

 this question \er\ lirieily, sinew among twelve hundred siMH-imens examined by mo at the 

 fishing stations ami at tin- so called eel factories (with the exception of the largest specimens, 

 which arc always females) I found an average of five per cent, with the organ of Syrski; of 

 the Kels under liftccii inches in length (forty-five centimeters) on an average there were twenty 

 per cent., so that the conclusions as to their abundance were very similar to those at Trieste, where 

 the fish market is supplied, for the greater part, with Eels from Chioggia, and to a less extent with 

 those from Coniacchio. 



"In Coniacchio the largest Eels with the organ of Syrski, which I have observed, were about 

 seventeen inches (forty-eight centimeters) in length, the smallest about nine inches (twenty-four 

 centimeters). All of these were found among the Eels taken during their migration to the sea, 

 and, like the females, were found with stomachs completely empty or slightly tilled with a slimy 

 substance. It was impossible to find in any specimen a more advanced development of the Syr- 

 skian organ than in those examined in summer at Trieste. 



"With reference to the third question undertaken by me, which relates to the actual kernel of 

 the eel question, that is, the possibility of obtaining the Eels which have migrated out to sea, in 

 order to obtain in this manner the sexually mature milters and spawners, I have been unable to 

 obtain any results. I have, so far as my opportunities permitted, left no stone unturned to gain 

 its solution. I went out to sea from Magnavacca and from Codigoro, on Chioggian vessels, and 

 many times have fished myself, and have stimulated the fishermen by offers of reward to endeavor 

 to obtain Eels at sea, but I am forced to the conclusion that with the ordinary means this cannot 

 be done. 



"Intelligent, gray-headed fishermen of Chioggia, who by means of their fishing apparatus 

 know this part of the Adriatic as well as they know their own pockets, have assured me that 

 throughout their entire lives they have never caught a grown-up river Eel in the sea at any dis- 

 tance from the coast. The Eels which were brought to me at Mannbach as having been caught 

 in the sea, and which I found to be the ordinary females, or Eels with the Syrskian organ, were 

 either from localities close to the shore where they are not rare, or were taken in the Palotta 

 Canal. There was no lack of attempts at deception. Fishermen took Eels from the shore with 

 them in order to be able, on their return, to claim that they had been caught at sea. In the imme- 

 diate neighborhood of the coast they are, as it has been stated, in the spring-time not rare, and 

 there are not the slightest differences between these and the Eels of the lagoons. I fonnd l>oth 

 females and Eels with the organ of Syrski with thoir reproductive organs in the same immature 

 condition as inComacchio; evidently they had just come through the Palotta Canal from the 

 lagoon into the sea. A certain distance, perhaps one or two marine miles from the coast, every 

 trace is lost of the adult Eels which wander by the many thousand into the sea. Strange as this 

 problem appears at hist sight, it is easily understood when the character of the fishing apparatus 

 is considered: the nets are those used in the capture of lobsters, and are thrown over the bottom; 

 they have meshes much too large to hold the Eels, or, when they are small-meshed, they do not 

 touch the bottom. The problem can only be solved by using apparatus constructed especially for 

 the purpose." 1 



Jacoby proposes the following questions, which, in his opinion, cover the still unanswered 

 points concerning the natural history of the Eel, and answers them in accordance with the results 

 of his own observations: 



1 JACOBY: Der Fischfang in der Lagune von Comacchio, pp. 45-63. 



