226 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



Streams to accomplish their growth in the sweet waters. The 

 mode of procreation of eels, which for ages had been an enigma, 

 has now at length been completely elucidated by Professor 

 Rathke, who discovered that the eggs, which are of microscopic 

 smallness, so as to be undistinguishable by the naked eye from 

 the fat in which they lie imbedded, are expelled through an 

 opening hardly large enough to admit the point of a needle. 

 The energy of the salmon in swimming stream-upwards for 

 hundreds and hundreds of miles, and bounding over rapids and 

 cataracts, is truly wonderful, but the instinctive efforts of the 

 little eels or elvers to surmount obstacles that seem quite out of 

 proportion to their strength are no less admirable. Mr. An- 

 derson, upwards of a century ago, described the young eels as 

 ascending the upright posts and gates of the waterworks at 

 Norwich until they came into the dam above ; and Sir Hum- 

 phry Davy, who was witness of a vast migration of elvers at 

 Ballyshannon, speaks of the mouth of the river under the fall as 

 blackened by millions of little eels. " Thousands," he adds, 

 " died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder 

 for others to make their way ; and I saw some ascending even 

 perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or 

 adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is 

 the energy of these little animals that they continue to find 

 their way in immense numbers to Loch Erne. Even the mighty 

 fall of Schaffhausen (which stops the salmon) does not prevent 

 them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where 

 I have seen many very large eels." After the little eels have 

 gained the summit of a fall, they rest for a while with their 

 heads protruded into the stream. They then urge themselves 

 forward, taking advantage of every projecting stone or slack 

 water, and never get carried back by the current. Myriads are 

 destroyed on the way by birds or fishes ; but, as usual, their 

 greatest enemy is man, who not only devours whole cart-loads of 

 little eels not larger than a knitting-needle, frying them into 

 cakes, which are said to be delicious, though rathei queer- 

 looking from the number of little eyes with which they are 

 bespangled, but after getting tired of eating them, actually 

 feeds his pigs with them, or even uses them for manure. A 

 prodigal waste -which should be looked after, as these little 

 eels would soon increase their weight, and consequently their 



