— 197 — 



or "bouyeiroûns", whereas the names "cives" or "cibales" are certainly chiefly used on 

 the Atlantic coasts. Further, they are called "pibales" or "civelles" (Seine, Loire) or 

 " montinettes" (Picardy). In no other country are they so richly provided with different 

 names as in France. In northern Spain they are called "angulas". In England' they 

 receive the name "elvers", which is said to be derived from "eel-fare", an Anglosaxon 

 word meaning eel-migration. In the Danish language A. Feddkrsen has introduced the 

 name „Aalefaring", which has a good sound and should therefore be used. "Glasaal" 

 (i. e. "glass-eel") is another name used in Denmark, indicating the glass-clear, transparent 

 appearance ot these small eels. So far as I am aware, there is no special name in 

 German or otherNorth-European languages; in general only the term eel-young is used. 

 In all the descriptions of the upward migration of the elvers into fresh water there is 

 one feature which has been specially remarked, namely, the great energy expended by 

 these small animals in endeavouring to overcome the hindrances which meet them on 

 their way. Another common feature in the reports from the coasts where district tides 

 occur is that the elvers understand how to take advantage of the rising water of the flood 

 tide to go up the water-courses. Otherwise there is great difference in the attention 

 given to them in the different countries. Thus, whilst at most places in northern Europe 

 attention as a rule is mostly restricted to making it easier for the elvers to mount up into 

 fresh water by means of various arrangements (by the so-called eel-ladders, bundles of 

 sticks etc.), or the young eels at some places are transported on a small scale to waters 

 to which access is naturally less than could be desired, the condition of things is quite 

 different in other European countries. In Italy and France, for example, the small elvers 

 are transported on an extensive scale even to places far removed from the coasts; even 

 so far indeed as to the Danube, where eels otherwise are never found, have quantities 

 of elvers been carried from Italy and France. On the lagoons at Comacchio in northern 

 Italy on the Adriatic care is systematically taken to procure easy entrance for the elvers 

 each spring, when they appear at the coast, and in the lagoons themselves they are al- 

 lowed to grow up and are caught some years later when as large silver eels they endea- 

 vour to return to the sea. The young elvers are used industrially in another way also, 

 being fished in great quantities and employed as food for man, as I shall now describe 

 more particularly. 



b. Elvers as food 



In several countries as for example on the Atlantic coasts of France a remark- 

 able fishery is carried on for the young elvers which are used as food. Several reports on 

 this fishery are to hand, but the French naturalist L. Vaillant ' has given a specially 

 interesting account of it, which merits quoting in extenso here. 



"Le Ministère de la Marine, à la suite de difficultés qu'avait soulevées dans nos dé- 

 partements du Sud-Ouest la pèche de la Civelle ou Pibale, c'est-à-dire la Montée d'An- 

 guilles encore très jeunes, a fait faire par M. M. les Commissaires de l'Inscription maritime 

 une enquête générale sur l'état de cette industrie dans leurs quartiers respectifs. Les 



I According to Yarrell, British Fishes, voll. II, 1836, p. 292, the inward migration of the young eels is 

 called "eel-fare" on the Thames, "fare" being the Anglosaxon word to go or wander, Yarrell is of opinion 

 that the word "elver" which is used chiefly by the people on the Severn, which runs into the Bristol Channel, 

 is a shortening of "eel-fare". 



