of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



207 



ova obscured. In appearance these eels are singularly bony. The 

 specimens were all about 26 inches long, but weighed only one-half the 

 normal weight. Perhaps the most interesting feature about them was 

 their eyes, which in some examples were eight times larger than normal. 

 The cornea is opaque, and attacked with Gregarines and other organisms. 

 These very remarkable abnormalities Mr Sandeman believes to be due 

 to senility.* Gunther also, in the article on ' Ichthyology ' in the Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica, writes — 'So much only is known that they do not 

 ' spawn in fresh water, that many full-grown individuals, but not all, 

 f descend the rivers during the winter months, and that some of them at 

 ? least must spawn in brackish water, or in deep water in the sea ; for in 

 ' the course of summer, young individuals from 3-5 inches long ascend 

 1 the rivers in incredible numbers, overcoming all obstacles, ascending 

 f vertical walls and floodgates, entering every larger and swollen tributary, 

 ' and making their way over terra firma to waters shut off from all com- 

 1 niunication with rivers.' ' It is probable,' writes Brown Goode, ' that the 

 f truth lies somewhere between the two extremes, and that it will be here- 

 ' after ascertained that the eel, like the majority of other fishes, has flexible 

 ' habits, sometimes deviating from the ordinary custom, which appears to 

 f be to spawn in salt or brackish water.' 



The eels leave the rivers and enter the sea in autumn, but according to 

 Benecke,f the migration begins in the upper stretches of long rivers in 

 April and May, and in the lower reaches and shorter streams later in the 

 season. Feddersen \ says that the migration of the male eel to the sea 

 happens most usually earlier in the year than that of the female in a body 

 (en masse) take place. The time of migration in any locality seems to 

 vary a little, and to be dependent on the state of the river. The eel 

 fishermen § on the Eden notice that the migration takes place on that river 

 in the first heavy spate in October or November. The main body of the 

 eels come down during the first night ; by the third night they have all 

 passed down to the sea. Hinkelman II observed that the migration of the 

 eel is carried on during the night, beginning about one hour after sunset, 

 is strongest from midnight until two o'clock in the morning, and ceases 

 about one, or one and a half hours before sunrise. The body of migrating 

 eels consists of males as well as of females. Among 1200 (more or less) 

 migrating eels taken at Comacchio, 520 were found by Jacoby to be males 

 measuring from 24-48 cms. All the eels were caught during their migra- 

 tion to the sea. A further advanced development of the lobe-organ in 

 contradistinction to those caught during summer near Trieste could not 

 be noticed in any of them. The Swedish Superintendent of Fisheries, Dr 

 E. Lundberg,|| has published an interesting pamphlet on the eel-fisheries, 

 with so called S hommor ' (eel-baskets), on the Swedish coasts along the 

 Baltic and the Sound, giving accurate observations on the migrations of 

 eels on the coasts of Sweden, which, in the main points, strengthen the 

 supposition that the mature eels seek the water of the Kattegat and the 

 North Sea — which is Salter than the Baltic — for the purpose of spawning. 

 These observations agree with those of Mr Dallmer, which have been 

 reported in the Circulars of the German Fishery Association, 1880, 1881. 

 After Dr Lundberg has given a sketch of the extent of the ' hommor ' 



* Annals of Scottish Nat. History, July 1894. 

 t From article by Brown Goode. Loc. cit. 



X Feddersen, in Dansk Fiskeri-forenings Medlemsblad, No. 35, 1893. 



§ Messrs Pinckney, Guardbridge, courteously gave me much valuable iuformatiou 

 regarding the eel-fishing on the Eden. 



II Hinkelman 'The Mode of Life of Eels,' Bulletin U.S. Fish. Comm., vol. iv 

 1884. 



II Hermes, 'The Migrations of Eels,' Report U.S. Fish. Comm., 1884, Washington 

 1886. 



