274 EELS 



Ever since man began to indulge curiosity about the 

 lives of his humbler fellow-creature, the ways of the eel 

 have been shrouded in much mystery. Aristotle, baffled 

 in the attempt to solve the enigma of their reproduction, 

 fell back on the unphilosophic theory of spontaneous 

 generation — the outcome of putrefaction. Gesner (1516- 

 1565) had no better explanation to offer; and even at 

 this day many of our countrymen hold that you may 

 create as many eels as you wish by steeping in water 

 the hairs of a stallion. Yet who is there so unmindful 

 of the slow growth of understanding as to smile at such 

 superstition, seeing that, seven years ago, eels in the 

 larval stage were scientifically classed as a distinct order, 

 or at least, a distinct family, of fishes under the imposing 

 title of Leptocephalidal It is true that Dr. Gtinther 

 cautiously refused them a separate place in his system, 

 but on grounds as far on the other side of truth as those 

 of the ichthyologists who gave these little creatures 

 generic rank. He considered that Leptocephalida were 

 the abortive offspring of various kinds of marine fishes, 

 perishing without attaining the character of the perfect 

 animal. Not until 1896 did the Italian naturalist Grassi 

 succeed in demonstrating that Leptocephalus was but the 

 larval form of the eel, produced from eggs laid in the 

 sea, probably pelagic, or free-floating, and crowding each 

 spring into all our streams in the singular phenomenon 

 of ' eel-fare.' These baby eels — elvers as they are called — 

 are slender, semi-transparent, creatures, two or three 

 inches long, and appear in such prodigious numbers 

 that I have seen a Scottish trout-stream slate-coloured 

 with them from bank to bank for a distance of twenty 

 or thirty yards. It is an example of Nature's lofty 



