THE EEL. 13 



own kind, a black beetle ! The story of' the rapid growth and 

 "transformatian of the salmon is — as will by and by be seen — 

 wonderful enough in its way, but it is certainly far surpassed by 

 the extraordinary silver eel, which is at one and the same time 

 .a fish and an insect. 



There can be no doubt that the eel is a curious animal even 

 without the extra attributes bestowed upon it by this very 

 original naturalist, for that fish is ia many respects the opposite 

 •of the salmon : it is spawned in the sea, and almost immediately 

 after coming to life proceeds to live in brackish or entirely fresh 

 water. It is another of the curious features of fish life that 

 about the period when eels are on their way to the sea, where 

 they find a suitable spawning-ground, salmon are on their way 

 from the sea to the river-heads to fulfil the grand instinct of 

 their nature — ^namely, reproduction. The periodical migrations 

 «f the eel, on which has been founded the great fishing industry 

 of Comacchio, on the Adriatic, can be observed in all parts of 

 the globe: they take place, according to climate, at difiierent 

 periods from February to May; the fish frequenting such canals 

 or rivers as have communication with the sea. The myriads 

 of young eels which ascend are almost beyond belief; they are 

 in numbers sufi&cient for the population of all the waters of 

 the globe — that is, if there were reservoirs in which they might 

 be preserved for food as required. The eel, indeed, is quite 

 as prolific as the generality of sea fish. Eels have been noted 

 to pass up a river from the sea at the extraordinary rate of 

 eighteen hundred per minute ! This montee used to be called 

 •eel-fair. 



It would be interesting, and profitable as well, to learn as 

 much of any one of our searfish as we know of the salmon, and 

 as considerable progress is now being made in observing the 

 natural history of fish, we expect in time to know much more 

 than we do at present; everything in the fish world is not 

 taken for granted as formerly, although we are still inclined 

 rather to revive old traditions than to study or search out new 

 facts. Naturalists are so ignorant of how the work of growth 

 is carried on in the fish world — in fact, it is so difficult to in- 

 vestigate points of natural history in the depths of the sea — 

 that we cannot wonder at less being known about marine 

 animals than about any other class of living things. The ex- 

 periments carried on at the Brighton Aquarium may ultimately 

 ielp us to more precise information. In that institution there 



