234 THE INFANCY OF ANIMALS 



this strange exodus from the pit of the sea ? how do they 

 find their way landwards ? Perchance they are provided 

 with some subtle, supersensitive power of detecting the 

 presence of fresh water poured out from the rivers, which 

 promotes a species of " river-hunger." Be this as it may, 

 the invading hosts sooner or later strike the mouth of a 

 river, and ascend its stream in myriads. By this time 

 the adult eel-shape has been assumed, the blood has 

 become red, and pigment tinges the body, though it is 

 still transparent. The little eel is now a " glass-eel " 

 or " elver," about a year old, and of the length of a 

 darning needle. 



It is difficult to estimate the numbers which annually 

 ascend our rivers during the spring and early summer 

 months. The advance guard may make its appearance 

 as early as February, but the main body pass during 

 May and June, when the remarkable phenomenon known 

 as the " eel-fare " takes place — the time when the young 

 eels, or elvers, " fare " up from the sea. Sir Herbert 

 Maxwell tells us he has "seen a Scottish trout-stream 

 slate-coloured from bank to bank, with the throng, for a 

 distance of twenty or thirty yards," and, he continues, 

 " It is a display of the prodigality of Nature, as well as 

 of her heartlessness to the individual fate of her creatures ; 

 for it must be only a very small percentage of elvers 

 which escape the voracity of birds and fish at this tender 

 age. Even man deigns to consider elvers a delicacy. 

 Couch, the ichthyologist, was told by a Cornish fisherman 

 that he had seen at Easter four carts loaded with elvers 

 for sale." They are fried in a form called elver-cakes, 

 made by pressing the tiny soft bodies into a shape, which 

 presents a somewhat curious appearance from the number 

 of tiny black eyes which bespangle the mass. In the 



