Coasts where ^%plpf\lw^i ^ K. ^■ 



ILirmts pf the mio^ripn -r<)^rtls' ^''^K ' 



f e/s 0/ Europe and eastern North America 

 hatct) from eggs laid in ttie Sargasso Sea 

 (below) . The larval eels take three years 

 to make the long journey east to the coastal 

 rivers of Europe where they mature. When 

 adult, the eels return to the Sargasso Sea, 

 lay their eggs, and die. 



sea and returns to the sea to die — the eel. The eel must have been 

 eaten by very early men in many parts of the world. It is one of the 

 few fishes capable of travehng overland and of lying on the banks 

 of rivers and lakes to bask in the sun. During migration millions 

 fill the rivers. Since it cannot fail to attract attention, we can 

 reasonably suppose that men have been eating eels for five, ten, 

 fifteen or more thousand years. 



Even so, the mystery of the eel was not solved — if it can even 

 now be said to have been solved — until a few decades ago. What we 

 now know is that in autumn the adult eels in the rivers of Europe 

 make their way to the sea and cross the Atlantic to the region of 

 the Sargasso Sea where they spawn and die. The eggs later hatch 

 and the larval eels make their way back to the coasts of Europe. 

 Taking three years for the journey, they arrive in the spring, at 

 which time they change into elvers, make their way up the rivers, 

 and spend several years feeding and growing, then repeat the cycle. 

 The eels of eastern North America do the same thing, except that 

 the larvae take only a year to reach the coast from the Sargasso Sea. 

 A similar story can be told for the eels of eastern and southeast 

 Asia and for those of Austraha and New Zealand, but in no case 

 do any of them make so long a journey as the European eel. 



There is a statue in Copenhagen of Johannes Schmidt, the man 

 who finally unraveled the mystei'y of eel migrations. But there 

 remain many obscure milestones on the path leading to his achieve- 

 ment. The search began in 350 b.c, when Aristotle declared that 

 mature eels migrate to the sea and disappear. It seems likely, too, 

 that he knew about the ascent of the elvers from the sea into fresh 



78 



