IIO FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
like waves, which become less and less apparent to the eye of the 
observer, while the eels are leaving the spawning-places and are 
betaking themselves to hunt for food or are seeking their cus- 
tomary quiet dwelling-places. If the observer, moved by over- 
whelming curiosity, comes on the following day to the same 
place, he sees nothing, but if he looks with a strong magnifying- 
glass carefully over the water-plants, he discovers little greenish- 
white eggs resting upon the bottom, out of which the young eel 
will escape in about six weeks.” 
It is only to be regretted that the enterprising observer has 
not illustrated the whole development of the egg by photo- 
graphic views of his fancies. 
Another wonderful story was narrated by Dallmer.* 
A Flensburg eel-smoker told him that once, in April, one of 
the sacks in which eels had been sent to him, after it had been 
emptied, was put into the water with the others; after having - 
been tied up he found, after eight to fourteen days, millions of 
living young eels from one to two inches long. He thought 
that fertilized spawn had been left in the bag which, in eight to 
fourteen days, had developed into fishes of one to two inches in 
length. A million of young eels of 1/2 inches in length would 
take a space of 9,761 cubic inches, which would be much more 
than a sack could contain. Such a quantity of little fishes 
would scarcely be able to find in a sack tied together at its 
mouth food enough to enable them to grow from a very minute 
size (the eggs in the ovary have been found only o.23™™ large, 
and may, perhaps, when laid, measure 0.5™™) in eight days toa 
length of from one to two inches; let us, however, suppose that 
the eel-smoker had confounded a hundred little eels with as 
many millions, it could hardly, even then, happen that these 
little animals in from eight to fourteen days could have grown 
to 160 times their original dimensions. The story would be 
much more probable if it were supposed that the young eels in 
their wanderings toward the fresh waters had, perhaps, found 
their way into a bag which was not tied up at its mouth. 
* Fische und Fischerei im Sussen Wasser, Segeberg, 1877. 
