TENTH ANNUAL MEETING. Eat 
in order to obtain in this manner the sexually mature milters 
and spawners, I have been unable to obtain any results. I have, 
so far as my opportunities permitted, left no stone unturned to 
gain its solution. I went out to sea from Magnavacea and from 
Codigoro, on Chioggian vessels, and many times have fished 
myself, and have stimulated the fishermen by offers of reward to 
endeavor to obtain eels at sea, but I am forced to the conclusion 
that with the ordinary means this cannot be done. 
“Intelligent grey-headed fishermen of Chioggia, who by means 
of their fishing apparatus know this part of the Adriatic as well 
as they know their own pockets, have assured me that through- 
out their entire lives they have never caught a grown-up river 
eel in the sea at any distance from the coast. The eels which 
were brought to me at Mannbach as having been caught in the 
sea, and which I found to be the ordinary females, or eels with 
the Syrskian organ, were either from localities close to the shore 
where they are not rare, or were taken in the Palotta canal. 
There was no lack of attempts at deception. Fishermen took 
eels from the shore with them in order to be able, on their 
return, to claim that they had been caught at sea. In the imme- 
diate neighborhood of the coast they are, as it has been stated, 
in the spring-time not rare, and there are not the slightest differ- 
ences between these and the eels of the lagoons. I found both 
females and eels with the organ of Syrski with their reproduc- 
tive organs in the same immature condition as in Comacchio; 
evidently they had just come through the Palotta canal from the 
lagoon into the sea. A certain distance, perhaps one or two 
marine miles from the coast, every trace is lost of the adult eels 
which wander by the many thousand into the sea. Strange as 
this problem appears at first sight, it is easily understood when 
the character of the fishing apparatus is considered; the nets are 
those used in the capture of lobsters, and are worked over the 
bottom; they have meshes much too large to hold the eels, or, 
when they are small-meshed, they do not reach the bottom. 
The problem can only be solved by using apparatus constructed 
especially for the purpose.” 
The economical value of the eel as a food fish has been well 
established, and it is now greatly sought after for introduction 
