lis Thi)-tij-seventh Annual Meeting 



quite dare to say positively, yet I Ijelieve the niiniljer of eggs 

 taken from each tish ran into the millions. I estmiated them by 

 weighing small quantities of the mass and counting the number 

 of eggs in that mass. I do not remember ever coming across 

 anything which appeared to be the generative organs of the 

 males. So 1 suppose all I examined were females. Tliey were 

 very large and bound down the stream; and it is a common 

 phenomenon of those rivers every fall to find great quantities 

 of eels moving down the stream in a good many places. It has 

 been the practice to capture them in large numbers and send 

 them to market at that time, and I had supposed that this con- 

 clusion might be safely drawn, that the eels ascending into fresh 

 M^ater did mature their ovaries, and then at certain times moved 

 down and went to sea, and laid their eggs ; and that when the 

 young reach a certain size, which may be three or four inches 

 in length, they ascended the rivers. I have seen large numbers 

 in rivers such as the Kennebec, three or four inches long, an 

 immense mass of them, perhaps twelve to eighteen inches wide 

 (I have noticed them as a boy) and so thick that one could hard- 

 ly see the bottom through the mass. I have seen them moving 

 steadily np the river right along the shore, and at Craig Brook 

 where I have charge of the station now, we constantly find little 

 eels all the way from three to eight or ten inches long, running 

 up the stream; sometimes we catch a hundred of them in a 

 night — little bits of fellows. We keep traps there set constant- 

 ly, because we fear they are enemies of our young fish ; we 

 know they are when they are full grown, so we try to trap and 

 reduce them in that way, and I supposed it was well established 

 that it was their natural way to come up into fresh water, spend 

 some years, get their growth, mature their reproductive organs, 

 and then go down to sea to lay their eggs. My observations 

 have been somewhat limited, but I feel sure that I found the 

 eggs in those eels and reported the fact to Washington at the 

 time. 



Mr. C. H. Wilson, Glens Falls, Js^. Y. : I want to sav that I 



Note. — On referring to the original records it is found that one 

 female eel contained three or four millions of eggs one one-hun- 

 dred-twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter — the estimate being care- 

 fully made. 



