FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 28 1 



DOM PINCHON. 



Before saying anything about eels, a word about Dom Pinchon, the French monk 

 that my friend the doctor refers to. It has been claimed that he hatched fish artifi- 

 cially in 1420, but it is believed from the best evidence obtainable that he simply 

 gathered and transplanted fish ova naturally fertilized, and that he knew nothing about 

 artificial fish propagation as practiced to-day. Vrasski, the Russian fish culturist, who 

 discovered the dry method of impregnating fish eggs, did try to cultivate the eel 

 artificially, but how he succeeded history does not tell us; but we can guess pretty 

 accurately from what we now know about eels. 



The doctor says, "tell us something about eels in Forest and Stream " ; but the last 

 time I told about eels at any length, it was under oath as a witness in the Supreme 

 Court in Brooklyn, and other witnesses had been testifying about fresh-water eels, and 

 salt-water eels, and silver eels, and when an attorney asked me how many species of 

 eels we had, and I said one, the presiding justice turned to the witness box and said, 

 "What's that?" in such a surprised tone of voice that I did not know but we had 

 other species that I did not know about ; and if I write much about the eel in this 

 column, I expect some Forest and Stream reader may ask, " What's that ? " 



EELS HAVE SCALES. 



"True eels are characterized by their scaly skin in association with a conical head 

 and a general resemblance to the congers." — Jordan and Evermann. It is true that 

 the scales are imbedded, but the eel has them, and we have but one species, called 

 American eel, or fresh-water eel, though when taken in salt water it is called salt-water 

 eel or silver eel; but I have known species of trout to be called silver trout when they 

 have been in salt water, or for a season on white sand in fresh water, which gives a 

 silvery coating both to the brook and lake trout; but that is not the reason that eels 

 have a silvery appearance. It may be as well to say here that the literature of the 

 eel would fill several issues of Forest and Stream, as there has been much speculation 

 about this fish, its habits, reproduction, and even its origin ; and the scientists of the 

 Old World have written elaborate papers on the subject of the eel within the past one 

 hundred or more years to show what they did or did not know about it; but I shall be 

 as brief as possible and boil down what is now known into as small space as possible. 



BELIEFS AS TO ORIGIN OF THE EELS. 



It is not necessary to dwell upon the early beliefs that the eel was generated from 

 horsehairs, from dew, from slime, from the females of another fish ; that the eel pro- 

 duced its young alive ; that both turf and mud produced them, and that they were 

 hermaphrodites, for to-day men may be found having just as strange ideas concerning 



