AnirricdN FisJirriei^ Society 117 



was (loi;l)te(l oil account of the supposed absence in the Xoi'tli 

 Sea of any other s])ecinient than the leptocephalus morissi. At 

 last, liowever, the leptoee])halus of the eel was found in great 

 al)undance by two special expeditions sent out by the Danish 

 government under the naturalist Johannas Schmidt. He found 

 these leptocephali in great abundance in the ocean remote from 

 land, and, as I said, in water of the depth of aliout a thousand 

 meters. He traced them from that place until they approached 

 ]H'etty near to the land. Even when they get into tlie estuaries 

 they are still translucent, and in that condition they are known 

 in France as civelle, aiul they have dift'erent names in other 

 places, and are regardt'(l in fact as a delicacy. They are trans- 

 lucent then, but still they ai'e not the same as the leptocephalus 

 found in the high seas; they have already assumed the sub- 

 cylindrical form. 



That is tlu' condition ; I will not go into detail. But we 

 have now the evidence of tlie develo])ment of the eel from the 

 condition of the leptocephalus initil it has arrived at a mature 

 state. Now it must take about eight years to com])lete that life 

 cycle, that is, from the egg to the adult form, and it is only 

 when the eel has l)een six and one-half to eight and one-half 

 years in fresh water that it goes down to the rivers. The eel 

 can of course live in fresh water for many years, Init while tlu're 

 it does not develop its generative apparatus, the ovaries or 

 spermaries. The full details of this I will give in a paper which 

 I will present later. (Great a])])lause. ) 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Charles G. Atkins, East Orland, Me.: I have had my- 

 self some o])])ortunity to make observations on eels and their 

 generation, which may l)e of interest. T should say al)out thirty 

 years ago Avhen engaged in capturing land-locked salmon at 

 Grand Take stream in ]\Iaine, we captured them by means of 

 traps which took the fish descending from the lake trying to get 

 into the stream ; all the tish were taken moving down with the 

 stream instead of upward. Occasionally we caught large eels, 

 and I found them filled inside with an immense mass of what 

 appeared to be white fat, but under the microscope it turned 

 out that that white fat consisted of eggs, and while I do not 



