34 FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
eel. It is gratifying to think that so desirable a result is largely 
attributable to the action of this Society. In my paper of last year 
I suggested as a probability that spawn would be found, if at 
all, in the fall months, just previous to the time when eels 
hide themselves in the mud in the process of hibernation. 
Not that this is hibernation in the broadest sense of the word, 
as the fish are during all of it not absolutely torpid, but 
perfectly capable of motion if disturbed, and of taking 
food from time to time. I have seen them when driven 
from one locality swim rapidly against a strong current 
with as much apparent ease as in summer, and I learn that on 
warm days they will occasionally feed. But in winter eels le 
dormant if undisturbed, and conceal themselves in the mud 
whether they happen to be in salt water or in fresh. Of this 
there is no question, and this hibernation commences in this 
neighborhood in November and continues till April. My pond 
on Long Island has been drawn off forthree succeeding winters 
for the purpose of digging out the muck which had accumulated 
on the bottom, and many grown eels were found in it, and were 
dug up with the muck. On the same subject I quote an article 
which appeared in the London /’e/d : 
“ At a meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society of 
Edinburgh, in 1841, Sir Walter C. Trevelyan read an account of 
some tame eels in a small pond in a walled garden at Craigo, 
the seat of David Carneghle, Esq., near Montrose, where it was 
stated eels have been kept fornine or ten years. They le torpid 
during the whole winter, except the sun is shining brightly, 
when they will occasionally come out of their hiding-places 
under some loose stones and sprawl about the bottom of the 
pond, but refuse to take any food. The 26th of April was the 
first day in 1840 that they rose for worms, but they eat sparingly 
until the warm weather begins, when they become quite insati- 
able; one of them will swallow twenty-seven large worms, one 
after the other. 
‘When they were first put in the pond and had no food given 
them, they devoured one another. They generally lie quietly at 
the bottom of the pond, except when any of the family go out 
