1142 



THE XATIOXAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ucts ; and the belief is current among the 

 peasants in parts of Germany today that 

 the eel makes excursions on dry land, 

 more particularly on the approach of a 

 storm. This view, as either an inde- 

 pendent or an imported creation, is like- 

 wise held in various parts of America. 



I was once obliged to combat, in a 

 reputable sporting journal, the contention 

 of an estimable angler that he had dem- 

 onstrated that the common eel is the male 

 and the lamprey (which is not an eel, not 

 even a fish) is the female of one and the 

 same species. That was some years ago, 

 and popular knowledge of the eel has 

 since then increased ; but if a person con- 

 sults the recent files of sporting maga- 

 zines and natural history periodicals of 

 a certain kind, he will see how the old 

 errors about the eel persist. As late as 

 the year 19 13 it remained for a writer in 

 one of the best of our outing magazines 

 to report that the eel, when a year old, 

 ascends Niagara Falls and thus gains 

 access to the upper lakes. 



THK EXTRAORDINARY CHANGES OE ITS 

 EII^E 



In the fall the eels which have been 

 living in the fresh waters and have at- 

 tained their full growth undergo peculiar 

 changes. The eyes in the males become 

 nearly twice the normal size, and both 

 sexes lose their dirty yellow-green color 

 and become silvery. Such eels migrate 

 downstream, traveling mostly at night, 

 and eventually reach the sea, where all 

 trace of them is lost. Their behavior in 

 the sea, the depths at which they swim, 

 their rate of travel, and whether in scat- 

 tered bodies or in compact schools, are 

 some of the still obscure phases in the 

 eel's life. 



The next evidence of these eels is met 

 with on the high seas, far from land, in 

 the form of their young progeny. The 

 larval eel is such a very different-looking 

 creature from the adult that no person 

 not properly instructed could by any pos- 

 sibility recognize it. It is compressed 

 laterally to the thinness of a visiting 

 card ; it has a small head, large eyes, 

 formidable, but apparently non-func- 

 tional, teeth that project forward and 



laterally; and the body is transparent 

 throughout, the fish being practically in- 

 visible except for its glistening black 

 eyes. 



The larval eel, known as the lepto- 

 cephalus, undergoes an extraordinary 

 metamorphosis. It remains at sea for 

 about one year, during which time it at- 

 tains a length of three inches. Its larval 

 state has then reached its climax, and in 

 its subsequent growth for a time the eel 

 actually becomes smaller ! There is a 

 gradual change in form from the ribbon- 

 like to the cylindrical, a shortening of 

 the body and of the intestine, and a 

 gradual assumption of the eel-like ap- 

 pearance (see page 1145). 



Fresh water has a great attraction for 

 the young eels, and as soon as they reach 

 the coasts, to which they are wafted by 

 currents and winds, they seek fresh- 

 water streams and begin to ascend them. 

 When they first arrive they have little 

 pigment in their skin, but they quickly 

 acquire a brownish color, and by the 

 time they arrive as far upstream as, say, 

 the vicinity of Washington, they have 

 become quite dark. 



Eels at the age when they begin their 

 ascent of the streams are called elvers, a 

 name that appears to have originated on 

 the River Severn in England and has 

 spread to all English-speaking countries 

 where eels are known. The upstream 

 movement of the elvers is known as an 

 eel-fare on the Severn, Thames, and 

 other English rivers, and this name also 

 has been transferred to America and 

 other countries. ''Fare" is from an 

 Anglo-Saxon verb meaning ''to go" or 

 "to travel," and "elver" is a corruption 

 of eel-fare. The migration, coming in 

 late winter or spring, may last for a few 

 days or several weeks in a given stream, 

 and the young, closely skirting the shores, 

 may be in a practically unbroken column 

 during the entire period. 



Some eels remain in the lower parts of 

 the streams and move back and forth in 

 the bays and estuaries, and others press 

 on to the headwaters, often surmounting 

 obstructions that would be impassable 

 for other fish, and remain there until full 

 maturity is attained. 



