49 
March 27, 1855. 
Dr. Gray, F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The Chairman read the following extract from a letter received 
from Francis Brent, Esq., of Sandgate, giving some further particulars 
regarding the destruction of the Conger eels by the late severe frosts. 
The letter was dated :— 
Sandgate, 25th March, 1855. 
You seemed to take some little interest im the account of the 
Conger Eels, so I will send you a few additional particulars. The 
oldest inhabitants recollect only two other occasions on which the fish 
in the sea were killed by the frost, one about thirty years and the 
other twenty-two years ago; indeed then the destruction was not 
nearly so great as during the present winter. Some of the eels were 
five and six feet long, and weighed between fifty and sixty pounds. 
One boat went out, and in three or four hours the crew picked up 
800 eels. They were mostly found near a feeding-ground called the 
Diamond-bank, but were more or less all round the coast: some of 
the sailors here say, they have seen conger eels which had been 
killed by the cold floating in the North Sea, but never in the Chan- 
nel. The only other fish that seem to have suffered were the mullet, 
many of which were found in Southampton harbour. Twenty-two 
years ago, the gurnets also were destroyed. The eels were all found 
with head and tail under water, part of the belly and vent at the sur- 
face, the whole fish bent almost into a circle. The fishermen say 
that the conger-eel is a very clean-feeding fish, and will only take 
live bait or flesh that is quite fresh. He feeds at night and near the 
surface of the sea, and some of the men attribute the destruction to 
the fact that the cold acted upon the creatures’ vents, in proof of 
which they assert that the vents always presented a different ap- 
pearance from the other part of the body, and that decomposition 
invariably commenced there. Others affirm, that the cold attacked 
the swimming-bladders, and so prevented the fish from sinking, and 
thus they perished from not being able to get into a warmer current 
of water than was to be found at the surface. : 
At first only a few of the fishermen would pick them up, as they 
said they were not fit for food; but some having been sent to Lon- 
don, a person there immediately telegraphed that he would purchase 
any quantity that could be procured, without reference to what state 
of freshness they were in. He boiled them down and made gelatine 
of them. It was, however, almost too late, for the wind changed 
almost immediately after his message was received, and the eels 
either sank from their air-bladders bursting or were carried out 
to sea. 
Dr. Gray also stated that in a shallow pond in front of Lord John 
Russell’s house in Richmond Park, all the freshwater fish, including 
carp, tench, roach, eels, and the frogs and toads, were killed by the 
frost in February 1855; and numerous specimens were rotting on 
No. CCLXXXVII.—Procerpincs or THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
