12 PEOPOSAL TO NOTE GROWTH OF SEA FISH. 



have noted ■when the young ones were born and how they grew, 

 why then not devise a means of observing sea fish at the expense 

 of the nation t What naturalists chiefly and greatly need in 

 respect of sea fish is, precise information as to their rate of 

 growth. We have a personal knowledge of the fact of sea^ 

 fish selecting our shores as a spawning-ground, but we do 

 not precisely know in some instances the exact time of spawn- 

 ing, how long the spawn takes to quicken into life, or at 

 what rate the fish increase in growth. The eel may be taken 

 as an example of our ignorance of fish life. Do professed 

 naturalists know anything about it beyond its migratory 

 habits ? — habits which, from sheer ignorance, have at one period 

 or another been' assumed as pertaining to all kinds of fish. 

 The tendency to the romantic, specially exhibited in the amount 

 of travelling power bestowed by the elder naturalists on this 

 class of animals, would seem to be very difficult to put down. 

 An old story about the eel was gravely revived a few years ago, 

 having the larger portion of a little book devoted to its eluci- 

 dation — a story seriously informing us that the silver eel 

 is the product of a black beetle ! But no one need wonder at 

 a new story about the eel, far less at the revival of this old 

 one ; for the eel is a fish that has at all times experienced the 

 greatest difficulty iu obtaining recognition as being anything at 

 all in the animal world, or as having respectable parentage of 

 even the humblest kind. In fact, the study. of the natural 

 history of the eel has been hampered by old-world romances and 

 quaint fancies about its birth, or, in its case, may I not say 

 invention t " The eel is bom of the mud," said one old author. 

 " It grows out of hairs," said another. " It is the creation of 

 the dews of evening," exclaimed a third. " Nonsense," emphati- 

 cally uttered a fourth controversialist, " it is produced by means 

 of electricity." " You are all wrong," asserted a fifth, " the eel 

 is generated from turf;" and a sixth theorist, determined to- 

 outdo all others, and come nearer the mark than any of his. 

 predecessors, assured the public that young eels are grown from 

 particles scraped ofif old ones ! The beetle theorist teUs us 

 that the silver eel is a neuter, having neither milt nor roe 

 and is therefore quite incapable of perpetuating its kind • 

 that, in short, it is a romance of nature, being one of the pro- 

 ductions of some wondrous lepidopterous animals seen by Mr. 

 Caimcross (the author of the work alluded to) about the place 

 where he lived in Forfarshire, its other production being of its 



