290 MURiENID.E. 



numerous worms tliat are frequently to be found in various 

 parts of the bodies of Eels, sometimes in the serous cavities, 

 at others in the intestinal canal. Rudolphi has enumerated 

 eight different species of entozoa common to fresh- water Eels. 

 The enormous number of young known to be produced by 

 Eels is a good negative proof that they are oviparous ; vivi- 

 parous fishes producing, on the contrary, but few young at 

 a time, and these too of considerable size when first excluded. 

 Having devoted time and attention to the close examination 

 of numbers of Eels for many months in succession, the fur- 

 ther details of which will be found in Mr. Jesse's second 

 series of Gleanings in Natural History, I need only here 

 repeat my belief that Eels are oviparous, producing their 

 young like other true bony fishes. 



" The sexual organ consists of two long narrow sacs ex- 

 tending one on each side of the air-bladder throughout the 

 whole length of the abdominal cavity, and continued for two 

 inches posterior to the vent. The membranes forming this 

 tubular sac, secreting on the inner surface the milt of the 

 male, and affording attachment for the ova in the female, are 

 puckered or gathered along the line of junction to the peri- 

 toneal covering of the spine, and the free or loose floating 

 edge is therefore thrown into creases or plaits like a frill. It 

 is probably from this folded or convoluted appearance the 

 sexual organs of the Eel have frequently been called fringes. 

 By the kindness of my friends Mr. Clift and Mr. Owen, of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, I have had the pleasure of 

 seeing some drawings belonging to the collection of John 

 Hunter, in which these peculiarities of the sexual organs in 

 the Eel are beautifully exhibited in various magnified repre- 

 sentations.*" 



Dr. Mitchill of New York, whose paper on Fishes has 

 been already referred to, says, " the roes or ovaria of Eels may 



