Minutes of Proceedings xclx 
dorsal and pectoral spines are much dreaded by the angler, as they are 
said to be very poisonous. 
Mr. Harmsworth thinks that the eel he caught is the silver eel. A 
writer in a recent number of the Hast London Dispatch (November) 
mentions the silver eel as occurring in South Africa. It is unknown to 
me; I am acquainted only with the two other kinds the writer mentions. 
It has the sharp nose which he gives as characteristic of the eels which 
are known to frequent estuaries for breeding purposes. Possibly it may 
be a new species. In any case, if this Orange River eel is not new, the 
circumstances surrounding its discovery demonstrate either its extreme 
rarity, the possibility of occasional access beyond the falls, or the 
erroneousness of the estuarial spawning theory. It would be of interest 
to determine the occurrence or not of eels in the Orange or its tribu- 
taries below the falls, but I fear there are difficulties, streams and 
observers being equally scarce in those parts ; also to ascertain if they 
are found in the Berg, Olifants, Verloren Vlei, and other waters flowing 
into the Atlantic. The feeders of the east-flowing Breede River rise so 
near the Paarl that my breakfast might have been furnished by that 
stream. I have been told as an undoubted fact that eels never occur in 
the Berg River. 
There is an alternative explanation, which I have formulated and 
kept in abeyance, to fall back upon should my Augrabies theory prove 
fallacious, and which the occurrence of an eel above the falls tends to 
invest with greater significance. I have been assured that the larger 
baager, Clarias Gariepensis, or an allied species, occurs in all rivers flowing 
into the Atlantic, the Berg and Olifants included. Unfortunately, my 
information on this point is purely hearsay, and is second-hand, but if 
correct might account for the absence of eels in our Western rivers ; 
for can it be that so voracious, active and indiscriminate a feeder as the 
baager renders the co-existence of eels in the same waters impossible or 
of rare occurrence? It is also said that the baager does not occur in 
streams debouching eastward, and there eels abound. This is con- 
firmatory. 
I have not been able to compare the comparatively rare fresh-water 
tortoise of the Orange River basin with the more abundantly occurring 
kind found in the Fish River and Kei basin, in the western province, or 
elsewhere, but I strongly suspect that it is specifically distinct. It is 
not Sternotherus sinuatus, for the plastron is rigid ; and it is probably 
not Pelomedusa galeata, for the peculiarly offensive odour is not nearly 
so strong or persistent as in the latter species. 
Our rivers and waters still offer ample scope and material for research 
and identification to any naturalist who wishes to take up a fruitful and 
comparatively unworked branch of zoology. 
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