122 FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
into the localities where, for some physical or other reason, it is 
unknown. The advantages as summed up by a German writer, 
are, first, that an eel will live and grow in anv water, however 
warm, and whatever be the general character of the bottom, 
though it prefers the latter when muddy and boggy; second, the 
eel requires no special food, but devours any thing, living or 
dead; it is an excellent scavenger, feeding upon dead fish, crabs, 
etc., as well as upon any living prey it can secure; third, but few 
conditions can interfere with its development, and it grows 
with very great rapidity, being marketable at the age of three 
years; fourth, the young, on account of their hardiness, can be 
transported in a crowded condition, and to any distance, with 
very little risk of destruction. These considerations are, in the 
main, well established, and there is no question but that the eel 
can be introduced in many waters to advantage, supplementing 
the earlier inhabitants. It has been planted in the waters of the 
upper lakes and the Mississippi River; in the latter they have 
reached an advanced development. It is, however, a very unde- 
sirable inmate of rivers in which fish are taken by means of gill- 
nets, the destruction of shad and herring in the waters of the 
Susquehanna and others further South being enormous. It is 
not unfrequent that when a gill-net is hauled up, the greater 
part of the catch consists simply of heads and backbones, the 
remainder being devoured by myriads of eels in the short time 
the net is left out. The spawning shad are considered by them 
a special delicacy, and are found emptied at the vent and com- 
pletely gutted of the ovaries. Sometimes a shad, apparently 
full, is found to contain several eels of considerable size. They 
do not seem to be very destructive of living fish of any magni- 
tude, although the young fry are devoured with gusto. 
Mr. Rooseve_t: Views differ as to the movement of eels, 
which perhaps, are influenced by the localities where they live, 
and investigators have, in my opinion, searched for spawning 
eels in the wrong places—along the bottom of the salt water, 
instead of in fresh water ponds and streams. Long Island eels 
may differ from other eels, but at my pond, there, I think, it is 
conclusively proved that the young descend to the sea after 
