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eaten by the people in Tralee, Castlemaine' and in the neighbourhood of the river 

 Feale." Further, Mr. P'oley sent me a sample of cooked elvers in January igo6, which 

 he had bought on the market. They were little pigmented and were in Stage 5 A. 



Lis mo re (S. coast). Mr. E. W. L. Holt tells me that the elvers are taken by the 

 people in Lismore who make them into jelly. 



Water ford (eastern part of S. coast). The Danish vice-consul there, Mr. William 

 H. Farrell writes: "there are no fisheries here for elvers or the fry of freshwater eels. 

 Fishermen tell me that elvers commence to ascend about the end of February and so 

 continue for about three months, but there are no elvers caught here or used for food, 

 in fact there is no attempt made to catch eel fry in this place." 



Dublin (E. coast). Mr. E. W. L. Holt tells me that no fishery for elvers takes 

 place there. 



We may conclude from the above information that it is only on the south-western, 

 partly also the southern coasts of Ireland, that a fishery for elvers to be used as food 

 is carried on. 



So far therefore as I have been able to determine, on the Atlantic apart from Spain 

 and France it is only in the south-western parts of England and Ireland, 

 that the eel-fry are fished on a larger scale in order to be used as food. This occurs 

 nowhere else in the other countries of North Europe. The limits of the area within 

 which an elver fishery is carried on, can be seen from the chart : Plate XII. 



For the rest the migration of the elvers from the sea and their ascent into fresh 

 water have been observed almost everywhere in Europe, and further, a considerable 

 number of the tiny elvers have from time to time been taken pelagically in the sea, some- 

 times even far from the coasts. I shall endeavour to throw light upon this matter, which 

 as will be seen gains renewed interest when viewed in the light of our recent investi- 

 gations with the "Thor" in the Atlantic, by giving some extracts from- the principal ob- 

 servations in both directions. 



c. Migration of the elvers into fresh water on the West and North European coasts 



Regarding this migrations reports are to hand from Italy, Spain, France, Great 

 Britain, the Faeroes, Iceland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, 

 i. e. besides from the Mediterranean from almost all the European coasts washed by the 

 Atlantic or its connections. North Sea, Kattegat, Skager Rak and Baltic (the last hovewer 

 only in part). 



Italy. Although the conditions in Italy do not as a matter of fact concern- the At- 

 lantic, I may also for the sake of completeness refer to it here. Apart from the inform- 

 ation mentioned in the beginning of this Section as given by Redi with regard to the 

 River Arno, where the ascent takes place from January to the end of April, there are 



I With respect to Castlemaine, situated on the River Maine which flows into Dingle Bay at the south 

 west corner of Ireland, Mr. FOLEY says . "I have been in Castlemaine to day and the people there inform me 

 that eel-fry are taken in the month of January and used for food, and when they take them in large masses 

 they take them to the neighbouring towns and sell them." He writes further: "they are used for food also in 

 the neighbourhood of the River Feale and are taken there in the month of January, and in the Tralee district 

 they tell me they are used as food and are caught in January" (from a letter dated; Tralee, 10th Jan. 1906). 



