It4 FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. ¢ 
also around the mills their ascent may be observed, especially 
about sunrise.” * 
Davy sends a similar account from Ireland. He was a witness 
of the ascent of young eels, or “elvas,” at Ballyshannon, at the 
end of July, 1823; he speaks of the mouth of the river under the 
fall being “blackened by millions of little eels about as long as 
a finger, which were constantly urging their way up the moist 
rock beside of the fall.” “Thousands,” he adds, ‘“‘ died; but their 
bodies, remaining, served as a ladder by which the rest could 
make their way; and I saw some ascending even perpendicular 
stones, making their way through wet moss or adhering to some 
eels that had died in the attempt.” f 
Such is the energy of these little animals that they continued 
to find their way in immense numbers to Loch Erne. 
In the little eels which ascend the rivers there are no traces 
of sexual organs, but in the fresh water they develop only into 
females. One of the most recent observations made by Dr. 
Pauly, in Munich, would appear to contradict this idea, since he 
discovered male eels among the fish which were brought with a 
lot of young eels to Heningen, were kept there for two years in 
ponds, and were finally released in the fish pond of Court-Fish- 
erman Kauffer. We should bear in mind, however, that these 
young eels were captured at the mouths of fresh rivers in brack- 
ish water; and that among the numerous small eels which swim 
in the brackish water there must be many larger specimens, in 
which the male organs have already begun to develop. Such 
are doubtless those which were sent in the male condition to 
Heningen and Munich, and were there recognized as males. 
* Professor Benecke had in his possession some of the young eels, which escaped from all 
the vessels in which they were confined, and even climbed to the ceiling of his room. 
+ EkL-rairs 1n ConneEcticut.—Fresh water eels may be caught in large numbers, in weirs 
along the lake streams, when descending at the fall equinox to deposit their spawn in some 
lower region, and in the following August their offspring, from three to six inches long, return 
in immense numbers, The basin of the Still River Falls, near Colebrooke line, is for several 
days alive with them. They may be seen laboriously crawling up every rock which is moist- 
ened by the spray of the fall, and endeavoring to reach their ancestral lake or dam. At the 
foot of the Niagara Falls this phenomenon may be witnessed ona large scale at the same sea- 
son of the year or later, and probably in other places where the fall is too high and the current 
too swift for the young eels to stem it without contact with the rocks.—Annals of Winchester, 
Conn., Boyd, p. 26. 
