Capture of a Freshwater Eel in a Ripe Condition. 35 



iipperside joins the brown, is a horizontal row of curved brown 

 lines ; the outer margin of anterior wings and of the posterior 

 wings as far as the tail is brown. 



Expanse of wings 1-^ inch. 



The underside resembles Logania sriwa and malayica of 

 Distant, both of which species have lately been received bj 

 me from North Borneo ; but the length of the antennse and 

 shape of the anterior wings of caudatus^ irrespective of 

 the neuration, preclude its being placed in that genus. 



IX. — Note on the Capture of a Freshicater Eel in a Ripe 

 Condition. Bj W. L. Calderwood. 



A FEMALE eel [Anguilla vulgaris), measuring 29^ inches in 

 length, was captured on the 27th of December last. The 

 capture was of some interest because the female was almost 

 ready to spawn and was found about twelve miles south of the 

 Eddystone, i. e. twenty miles from Rame Head, the nearest 

 point of land. That a freshwater eel should be found so far 

 out at sea, at the breeding-season, is not in itself very sur- 

 prising, because it has long been conjectured that Anguilla 

 spawns in salt water ; but in the present state of 

 knowledge any of the rare instances of the actual capture of 

 a specimen in the condition of sexual maturity should be re- 

 corded. 



The ovaries were pure white in colour, and corresponded 

 exactly in appearance with those described and figured by Broek 

 in 1881*. They extended the entire length of the abdominal 

 cavity, showed no signs of any blood-supply, and when touched 

 crumbled away most easily. The ova were apparently quite 

 ready to drop from the outer surfaces of the organs. Sections 

 showed, however, that in each ripening ovum the nuclear 

 membrane was still distinctly visible. The nucleoli of largest 

 size were arranged round the periphery, smaller jDodies being 

 found amongst the granular protoplasm of the nucleus. The 

 substance of the ovum itself was richly stored with oil-glo- 

 bules, giving the characteristic appearance known in the 

 conger's &^g t* 



* Broek, " Untersuchiingen iilev die Geschlecht&organe einiger Mu- 

 raeuoiden,'' Mitt. zool. Stat. Neapel, Band ii. p. 415. 



t Calderwood, " A Contribution to our Kno-nkdge of the Ovary and 

 Intraovarian Eggs of Teleosts," Jouru. Mar. Biol. Assoc, vol. ii. no. 4, 

 pi. xi. 



3* 



