404 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
■i 
[May 24, igd'2, 
The Fate of Tom Allston, 
El Paso, Texas, May 8.—It is with profound regret 
that I have to announce the death of Tom Allston, the 
guide who accompanied us into the Sierra Madres last 
fall. He left Casas Grandes about the middle of January 
alone to prospect, and some six weeks later his dog 
reached Casas Grandes in a half-famished condition, but 
even then no great alarm was felt (as he was accustomed 
to being out for months at a time), until some time in 
March a party of prospectors came across the half-burned 
remains of a man just north of the Hole (which place 
formed the subject of a recent article in Forest and 
Stream), and although there was left no clue by which to 
recognize him, it is almost certain that poor old Tom 
met his fate alone in that desolate wilderness, and the 
supposition is that he was working his way along in 
hopes of finding the trail leading into the canon, and was 
discovered by some of its bloodthirsty Apache inhabi- 
tants and murdered, and his outfit taken. I had warned 
• him on several occasions during our hunt last fall against 
going into that section alone, but he always declared 
there was no danger, etc. 
I am now more determined than ever to go into that 
place next fall and am now quietly at work organizing a 
party of eight to explore that canon, and woe to the red 
devil that crosses our path. It is said that they guard 
very carefully and jealously the secrets of their fastness — 
some say because the canon is rich in gold, but most prob- 
ably because they are renegades and fear a visit from 
American troops; but I am determined to find out what 
brave Tom Allston lost his life trying to discover. 
I. J. Bush. 
A Relic of Indian Days* 
Some two miles back of my house there is an old Indian 
relic such as I have never seen mentioned in Forest and 
Stream. 
In a ledge some thirty-five feet in length, of what was 
no doubt once solid granite, is an old Indian mill, or 
mortar. No one can tell anything as to its age. Here 
the Indians (no doubt) hundreds of years ago ground or 
pounded whatever grain they had. This mortar or Indian 
mill, as it is called, is some eighteen inches in diameter at 
top, three feet deep and tapers from top to bottom. Years 
ago it was apparently very smooth inside, but the action of 
time and weather has caused seams and roughness. The 
front edge has crumbled away, owing, as I am told, to a 
fire which ran over that section some years ago. To 
dig out of granite such a place would entail hard work 
with modern drills. How the Indians did it with the 
tools they had, seems a mystery. I have been looking 
over this* Indian mortar with the intention of trying to 
remove it to some place near my house. It evidently 
cannot be split out entire. The back half looks as though 
I could get it out whole. The front half would have to be 
taken out in pieces and afterward put together. 
I have never heard of similar Indian relics, and would 
like to know if others exist. C. M. Stark. 
Dumbarton, N. H,, May 16. 
The Eel and its * Migration. 
(Concluded from page 384.) 
It may be said that while the leading incidents of the 
eel's life* history are probably, they are not indubitably 
determined. Our streams appear to be tenanted by at 
least two varieties, distinguished by differences in color 
and shape of head, one being silvery upon the underside, 
the other yellow. It is the former that is the migrating 
eel, and the fanciful theory has been advanced that its 
colors are a nuptial dress, for with its array of white, it 
decks itself with a splash of black, its pectoral fins becom- 
ing dark as jet. This change of appearance is, however, 
in all probability, simply the assumption of a colora- 
tion adapted to the conditions of its new abode, and is 
not very different from that assumed by the young salmon 
or smolt, when it sets out upon its first voyage to the 
sea. The silver or migratory eel is sharper nosed, fatter 
and usually of a better flavor than its yellow sexually 
undeveloped, and stay at home companion. It is the latter 
that abides in the mud through the winter, not unlikely 
prolonging its fresh-water sojourn three or four years 
before donning its traveling dress and voyaging to the 
dungeons of the distant deep. 
In what selective order this migration is accomplished 
is uncertain; perhaps all the eels of a certain age depart 
together, or a portion only of each year's hatching may 
depart seaward, the remainder following the next season. 
In such manner it appears that the salmon of English 
rivers guards its race against extinction, nearly_ half the 
fry departing when one year old, a similar portion when 
two years old, while a small fraction lingers until the 
third year of their existence. With the salmon of the 
Rhine, Miescher has found that the adults return from 
the sea at intervals of about three years, a larger propor- 
tion migrating each successive period, the third being the 
largest and the last. Upon the principle of not putting all 
their eggs in one basket, the eels of each generation may 
also migrate in detachments, and thus the better insure the 
continuance of a particular colony or race. The male eels 
are of smaller size and are present in the streams in 
smaller numbers than the females. Dr. Hermes found 
but ii per cent, in the Elbe, 120 miles from its mouth, and 
none at all thirty miles further up, and other observa- 
tions support his conclusion that the eels mainly abide in 
salt or brackish water, and there await the descent of the 
females. 
In their outward migration the eels probably project 
their outward course to some definite point in the ocean, 
each fluvial colony possessing its particular haunts to 
which generation after generation resorts. It would seem 
further likely that it is essential that this nursery be situ- 
ated not only at a depth of three hundred fathoms, but 
also in excess of that figure. Deep-sea fish, doubtless, 
need a range of vertical movement, and, therefore, can- 
not be expected to cramp themselves within an attenuated 
stratum when the requisite amplitude of space is attain- 
able just beyond. Depths of four hundred fathoms, which 
it seems probable that eels would seek, seldom exist in 
proximity to the land, the migrating swarms therefore 
cannot accomplish their life's supreme mission without 
voyaging long and far through the darkness of the under 
sea. The exquisitely sensitive photographic plate im- 
mersed in the greater depths that they traverse with the 
directness of the arrow's flight, cannot detect a remnant 
of the sunshine that may beat down above them. Per- 
haps unconscious of alternating night and day, the lone 
voyagers speed through" reaches of unvarying gloom, and 
attain their distant bourn only to feed the coming with 
the flickering flame of the departing life. 
Reference has hitherto been made to the immensity of 
the eel population of the Thames and other rivers empty- 
ing into the North Sea. The myriad migrants upon 
quitting these various streams are remote from the inky 
depths to which an irresistible instinct doubtless impels 
them. In the German Ocean, the North Sea and the 
British Channel the depth rarely exceeds fifty fathoms, 
and, to attain the watery profound that they probably 
seek, the anxious travelers must venture many leagues 
to the north of the Shetland Islands, to the west of the 
Hebrides and Iceland, or to the south and west of Corn- 
wall. Each fluvial colony probably betakes itself to a 
distinct locality, the distance from the mouth of the 
Thames to three or four hundred fathom water being 
five or six hundred miles, and yet the long, dark and 
devious voyage is doubtless accomplished with certainty 
and precision over the shortest route. Wherever its goal 
may be, probably in few cases is that course projected 
over a straight line, the windings involved in the attain- 
ment of the Atlantic deeps are many, to the east, south 
and west must the head of the toiling caravan be succes- 
sively turned. 
In all the streams emptying into the North and Baltic 
seas, eels are abundant, Holland and Denmark exporting 
great quantities to Great Britain. To these countries and 
to Germany and Scandinavia the eel gains access through 
the North Sea, and yet, although dredged by hundreds of 
trawlers, no eel larvae, eel eggs or other sign of the neigh- 
borhood of their spawning grounds has been discovered. 
In the fall the Baltic eels move southward, turning west 
and north into the Danish Sound, to then disappear into 
the Cattegat. Along the Swedish and Danish coasts they 
are caught with traps set at the bottom, sometimes as deep 
as nine or ten fathoms. Despite this thick screen of over- 
lying water, these haunters of obscurity appear to travel 
only on the darkest nights, their active movement be- 
ginning an hour after sunset, becoming strongest at two 
in the morning, and ceasing an hour and a half before 
sunrise. This foreknowledge of the unheralded dawn is 
as mysterious as that of a Patagonian finch (Divea minor) 
whose marvellously sweet song breaks forth from the 
darkness like a matin bell, and soon after the first pale 
streaks of light are discernible in the east. Night after 
night, if favorable, throngs of eels thus pass along the 
Swedish and Danish coasts, seeming to retire by day to 
deeper waters, to resume, at its close, their voyage under 
cover of darkness and the contiguous land. Whether this 
apparent resting during daylight is continued after at- 
taining the deeper waters of the Cattegat and of the seas 
beyond is, of course, uncertain. The coast is not closely 
followed along its entire extent by the hurrying voyagers, 
the best places for eel fishing being in bays toward pro- 
montories which turn toward the places from which they 
come. The eels come close to the shore, pass along it for 
some distance and again return to deep water, at some 
places striking the Danish, at others the Swedish coast. 
The hugging of the shore during the migration is also, to 
some extent, characteristic of salmon, and the habit with 
both fish may possibly be a pursuance of certain land- 
, marks. If this be so, if a memory of distinctive features 
of the long route operates to guide and direct the wan- 
dering columns, then it seems evident, must such 
memory be inherited by the returning swarm of elvers. 
The journey from the inky profound of the distant At- 
lantic, through the depths of minor seas and the shallows 
of various straits and sounds, passing the coasts of differ- 
ent nations and peoples, is bewildering in its complexity. 
Far more difficult of solution than the age-long mystery 
of its reproduction is the eel's migration, its voyaging, 
with varied directions of course, but with precision of ac- 
complishment, the dim obscurity of the nether sea. 
The contention that the eel breeds in abyssal depths 
lacks the full and absolute demonstration that is required 
to place beyond controversy a question that has been 
mooted for ages. Briefly, the evidence may be sum- 
marized as follows : The eel certainly goes far seaward, it 
has been dredged up a hundred miles off the mouth of the 
Hudson River, also from the bottom of the North Sea, 
and has been discovered in the stomach of the sperm 
whale, a creature that finds its subsistence far below the 
surface. Again, the eel's wide distribution is evidence 
that its marine journeyings are probably extensive; it is 
found in remote islands — Iceland, the Bermudas, Ma- 
deiras, Azores, Grenada, Dominica and various others in 
the Atlantic — it being clear that only a far-wandering fish 
could have attained these isolated and widely separated 
localities. In the Mediterranean the larva? has been found 
at a depth of three hundred fathoms, also in the stomach 
of a deep-sea fish frequenting waters of that depth, and 
in the Atlantic waters, off the New Jersey coast, speci- 
mens have been taken by the U. S. Fish Commissioner's 
steamer, the Albatross, where the depth was nearly 1,000 
fathoms. The eel's strenuous avoidance of light at its 
migration period, its apparent quest of absolute darkness, 
and the enlargement of its eye are circumstances further 
supporting the contention that it buries itself in the 
abyssal depths of the sea, that it there finds a secure 
nursery for its brood. The immensity of the elver's land- 
ward migration, despite its probable thinning by marine 
enemies during its course, and also during the year of 
larval existence, is proof that the swarm issues from a 
region that has harbored them in comparative safety. 
Physical peculiarities of the eel, other than its enlarged 
eye, also tend to show that it is a deep-sea fish. Says Dr. 
Guenther, in his Report on Deep-Sea Fishes: "The de- 
velopment of the muciferous system is a peculiarity that 
indicates the bathybial nature of a fish." The peculiar 
sliminess of the eel is thus an evidence of its abyssal 
abode, and the turning black of its pectorals may be an- 
other, for Guemher states that a black coloration of the 
pharynx is an aiiied distinctive feature. Concerning the 
slime-secreting organ, he says : "Whether it is to be 
regarded as an excretory or sensory organ, it is clear that 
its extraordinary development in so many deep-sea fishes 
must stand in relation to some one of the abyssal condi- 
tions under which they live." Finally, it may be urged 
that the elver's disposition to travel by day is the fit and 
proper expression of a migratory instinct that seeks the 
opposite of existing conditions, impelling it to quit an 
abode of gloom and shadow and to aspire to the bright- 
ness of the upper world. 
The larva, like its parent, is a creature of darkness; it 
retreats from the light, burrowing into the bottom of its 
aquarium, but with its passage into the elver it needs 
and acquires instincts incident to its new state of being. 
Necessarily, the first of these is that which impels it to 
assemble, and in the blackness of the deep the marshaling 
of the infantile host is doubtless accomplished with order 
and precision. Their departure for an unseen goal is 
probably in darkness, the desire to attain the light de- 
veloping during the journey, impelling them, as they ap- 
proach the land, to quit the shadowy but securer way and 
confront the dangers that impend above. 
In English rivers, according to Jesse, the ascending 
columns have been observed to give off detachments at 
the mouth of each tributary, the main body proceeding 
onward, as though conscious of another destination. In 
France, also, distinct portions of the crowded schools are 
noticed deploying at the junction of each branch, to then 
wander along its course. The stocking of the rivers is 
evidently systematic, and the well-ordered distribution 
must, seemingly, be either the result of an inherited 
memory of ancestral abiding places, or of a telepathic 
perception of the occupants of each tributary to which the 
successive detachments resort. It has already appeared 
that eels abide in fresh water a number of seasons, an- 
nually throwing off seafaring troops whose returning pro- 
geny may have a more or less remote cognizance of {heir 
stay-at-home kindred. 
The faculty of mutual recognition possessed by the in- 
dividuals of large animal communities, such as those of 
cattle, bees, ants, etc., appears to be often, exercised over 
indefinite distances. An attribution of this mysterious 
power to the eel may best explain the infallibility of direc- 
tion with which their progeny, after probably traversing 
in some instances hundreds of miles of inky depths, at- 
tain their destined stream, to then ascend it in countless 
myriads and populate each tributary with a methodical 
and well-arranged allotment of its mass. The journey of 
the tiny fledglings is the initial ventures of their lives, the 
long way is untried, but without guidance or pilotage 
they launch out into the darkness, and emerging therefrom 
find themselves strangers in strange waters. Breasting 
the latter's current, their arduous voyage probably finds 
its proper conclusion in the bosom of their near kin, to 
abide with or near them until recalled to the deep that 
gave them birth. 
Eels are gregarious, and the basis of their polity is, 
doubtless, the limited assemblage termed the school. 
Mere propinquity may suffice to establish a bond of union 
with fish as with animals, thus it has been observed that a 
large and miscellaneously gathered herd of cattle, driven 
to a distant market over. Australian plains, formed, after 
a few days, an apparent knowledge of each other, with- 
out, in every individual instance, coming in contact, and, 
therefore, any stranger attempting to come into the herd 
found every horn directed against it. Certain bunches of 
cattle kept together, perhaps by reason of kinship or pre- 
vious association, so that it would appear that a recogni- 
tion of temporary connection with masses of unrelated 
individuals may exist apart from that of kinship. Simi- 
larly, the associative recognition of a large body of eels, 
although composed of many colonies, may exist in con- 
junction with a perception of the more intimate tie bind- 
ing the smaller aggregations. It is likely that the eels of 
each small tributary and of different reaches of the larger 
streams from distinct bodies, the mature individuals as- 
sembling prior to their seaward migration, at which time, 
like other migratory fish, they abstain from food. This 
association is maintained to the end, and a consciousness 
of its subtle tie apparenty descends to the next generation, 
impelling it to form upon the return migration a distinct 
assemblage, and it may not be too much to assume that a 
telepathic perception of its distant kin is a material fac- 
tor in affecting the probable union therewith. 
In the migration of the eels of the St. Lawrence the 
voyage accomplished is exceptionally long and difficult, 
and merits special mention. The frail and tiny elvers, upon 
their emergence from their natal realm of darkness, 
traverse the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and, after contending 
with the many rapids of its mighty tributary, face the 
wide expanse of an inland sea. It was the opposition of 
a relentless current that had hitherto directed the course 
of these ultimate voyagers, that clue now fails them, for, 
more than any other, the waters of the great lake obey the 
impulse of the inconstant wind. Nevertheless, at the 
appointed time, in each and all of Ontario's many streams, 
from its humblest tributary to Niagara's mighty flood, 
there rises its allotted living tide. Each separate detach- 
ment, doubtless, attains its goal with certitude and dis- 
patch, and, not improbably, by a direct course across 
the broad bosom of the lake. Whether projected in an 
undeviating line over or under the trackless water r 
along a winding coast, in either case, the accomplish 
is a marvel and inexplicable save upon the assurr 
that the little navigators possess an occult percep; 
their various destinations. 
The elvers that colonize Niagara River must ■ 
nearly the entire length of the lake, and despite p' 
depletion upon the way, arrive in countless myriads. 
About twenty-five years ago Prof. Baird, then United 
States Fish Commissioner, stated with reference to this 
sub j ect : 
As might be expected, the Falls constitute an impassable barrier 
to their ascent. The fish is very abundant in Ontario, and until 
artificially introduced, was unknown in Lake Erie. At the present 
time, in the spring and summer the visitor who enters under the 
sheet of water at the foot of the Falls, will be astonished at the 
number of young eels crawling ov'er the slippery rocks and 
squirming in the seething whirlpools. An estimate of hundreds 
of wagon loads, visible at the place referred to. would hardly 
be considered excessive by those who have visited the sp&t at a 
suitable season of the year.— Hist. Aquat. Animals, Sec. 632. 
This enormous multitude, visible only at one spot of 
