— 152 — 



not a favourable place for ascertaining anything about the normal conditions under which 

 Leptocephahis brevirostris lives. For this purpose we must turn to other places where 

 the larval stages of the eel are found. In the Mediterranean itself some specimens were, 

 as mentioned, taken by Grassi and Calandruccio at Catania (1. c. p. 9) and one was 

 taken at Naples by the staff of the Station there. Concerning the exact mode of occurrence 

 of these specimens we have no good information, so that we get no nearer to learning 

 the normal mode of life of the eel-larvae than with the numerous specimens from the 

 Messina Straits. On the other hand Lo Bianco ' describes a specimen (length 70 mm., 

 greatest breadth 13 mm.) taken in the neighbourhood of Capri on April 2nd, 1901 from 

 Krupp's yacht the "Maja" in a small, open conical net, which was towed for an hour 

 (10 — 11 a.m.) at the end of a 500 meter towline. The exact locality was 9 kilometers 

 from Punta Campanella and the depth at the place was ca. 1000 meters. The depth at 

 which the specimen was taken is considered by Lo Bianco to have been at least 400 

 meters. 



Outside the Mediterranean Leptocephahis brevirostris has been taken extremely 

 seldom. In his report on the pelagic fishes collected by the Challenger Expedition Günther^ 

 merely mentions that one "specimen of Leptocephahis brevirostris was taken on April 

 13th, 1876 in the North Atlantic on the surface. As L. brevirostris had not been well 

 described or figured (cf Kaup's figure reproduced here p. 147) at the time when Günther 

 drew up his report it appeared to me uncertain whether the "Challenger's" specimen 

 really belonged to this species, i. e. to the common eel {Anguilla vtilgaris). I wrote 

 therefore to the British Museum (of Natural History) where the collections of the "Chal- 

 lenger" are preserved, and asked whether I could obtain some photographs 3 of Günther's 

 specimen as also some more exact information concerning the locality where it was taken. 

 In his reply Mr. C. Pate Regan of the British Museum wrote as follows : 



"I am sorry to say the Leptocephahis is by no means well preserved and that there 

 is no other information as to the exact locality of its capture. The Leptocephalus has a 

 total length of 46 mm." At the same time 3 photographs of the Leptocephalus were sent 

 me taken by Mr. James Green. These photographs, which are reproduced in the accom- 

 panying Fig. 4, show that the Challenger's specimen does not belong to L. bre- 

 virostris (i. e. Angtdlla vulgaris). This is at once seen from the form, but especially 

 from the much longer and flatter snout and the much larger mouth. Further, it was 

 possible to count most of the myomeres in the photograph, and it thus appeared that this 

 specimen, the length of which was ca. 46 mm., had more than 140 myomeres, which 

 quite excluded the common eel with number of vertebrae varying between 1 1 1 and 1 1 8 

 (cf Section II). The "Challenger's" discovery of L. brevirostris has thus proved to have 

 been based on an incorrect determination and must be erased from the literature. 



The next discovery of larvae of the common eel was described by the Americans 



1 S. Lo Bianco, Die pelagischen Tiefenfänge der Maja in der Nähe von Capri, Leipzig, 1902, p. 18 — 19 

 (The same paper appeared in Mittheil. aus der Zool. Stat, zu Neapel, i5.Bd. 1901, p. 413 et seq.) 



2 A. GÜNTHER, Report on the Pelagic Fishes (Zoology of H. M. S. "Challenger", vol. XXXI, p. 42, London, 

 1889). A closer investigation of the matter shows however that the "Challenger's" station on April 13th, 1876 

 (No. 352) was off the west coast of Africa south from Cape Verde (Lat. io°55' N. i^°\b' W.). (Narrative of 

 the Cruise, vol.1, 2nd part, p. 1015.) 



3 As it is well-known that the British Museum does not loan out material, I requested to have the spe- 

 cimen photographed. 



