1032 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
ter. “And here”, says Villumsen®, “it may often he 
observed how the Cod in winter disgorge from their 
crammed stomachs extremely small and semi-transpa- 
rent young Eels, only 5 — 8 cm. long. Food digests 
rapidly in the stomach of a Cod, and as the disgorged 
Eels are fresh and entire, we may safely conclude that 
they have been swallowed quite recently and thus on 
the spot. I have also seen them jump alive from the 
jaws of the Cod, which had probably seized them at 
the same moment as it took the fisherman’s bait. The 
bottom in this part of the channel consists of mud 
mixed with clay, and must be tenanted by multitudes 
of Eel-fry, for sometimes every single Cod has secured 
a number of them. It cannot well be assumed that 
these frail creatures swim freely about at a time of 
year when the larger Eels eagerly take refuge in the 
security of the bottom. It is more probable that they 
lie concealed in the mud, but that the Cod knows how 
to rout them out from their hiding-places. This opi- 
nion is supported by the fact that the stomach of the 
Cod also contains other inhabitants of the mud, such as 
Ascidians, Holothurians, worms, etc.” 
“The Eel lays its eggs in the mud”, writes Des- 
marest 6 , “after a kind of copulation. The eggs are bound 
together by a slimy mass like that which envelops the 
ova of the Perch, and form small clues or round balls. 
Each female, as we have ascertained by personal ob- 
servation, annually lays several of these agglomerations. 
The fry are soon hatched, but remain for some days 
after exclusion within the said balls. When the fry 
have attained a length of 4 — 5 cm.', they liberate them- 
selves from the bonds that confine them, and ascend 
the neighbouring rivers in dense and extremely nume- 
rous bodies”. 
Not all the Eel-fry, however, repair to the rivers 
at this age. A great number pass one or two years 
in the sea' 7 , and are 2 — 4 dm. long when they under- 
take the ascent. At Elfkarleby fry of this size make 
their way up the Dal Elf, where they are called Al- 
vimrnor or Alvinner e , without intermission from July 
till October, but mostly in September. These Alvim- 
mor or Elvers are the Civelles of French rivers. When 
they have grown somewhat larger, and are found among 
the seaweed of the littoral regions or the grass of the 
lakes, they are known in Sweden as Gras-til or, on ac- 
count of their watery flesh, Blot-al, in Denmark as 
Visse-til. 
We have still to consider the question whether the 
Eel also breeds in fresh water. As we have seen, this 
is hardly probable. Eels occur, it is true, in tarns of 
great elevation and in isolated pieces of water which 
seem to be cut off from the sea by barriers impassable 
to a fish. But Eel-fry have an almost incredible capa- 
city of penetrating or circumventing obstacles in their 
path, and their elders can also travel, by land. Obser- 
vations have been made, however, which are at least 
easiest of explanation on the assumption that the Eel 
propagates in fresh water as well as in salt/. Trybom 
states (1. c.) that “in 1864 1,000 young Eels were trans- 
planted from Elfkarleby to Lake Hagel in Dalecarlia. 
The lake has no outlet, and no Eels had previously 
been found in its waters. In 1871 Eels weighing l x / 4 
— I 1 / 2 kilo, were taken there, in 1872 specimens that 
turned the scale at 1*7, 2, and even 3*4 kilo. In the 
summer of 1879 small Eels weighing only V 5 kilo, as 
well as larger ones were caught. Eel-fry have been 
planted in the lake on only one occasion”. Only a few 
years ago it was supposed that male Eels occur in the 
sea alone, and do not ascend, at least not in any great 
number, into fresh water. It was consequently incon- 
ceivable that the Eel should multiply in fresh water. 
But the collections of the Royal Museum had contained 
ever since 1844 a male Eel 23 cm. long, taken by 
Lieutenant Robsahm at Trollh&ttan ; and in 1880 Her- 
mes 9 found 13 male Eels in the Elbe off Cumlosen, near 
Wittenberg, about 25 German miles from the mouth of 
the river. Recently (the middle of June, 1893) at 
Silkesborg Papermills and Holm Mill, in the Eel-traps 
a Dansk. Fiskeritidende, 1892, p. 15. 
b Chenu, Encycl. d'Hist. Nat., Rept., Poiss., p. 328. 
0 But of. Jacoby’s statement, mentioned above, that most of the young Eels on their upward journey at Comacchio are only 6 — 8 
mm. long. 
d In the old outlet of the River Nissa, the so-called Svinback, open towards the sea, but now almost choked up, Eel-fry Y 2 — 1 dm. 
long used to take up their summer quarters without evincing any migratory tendencies; and the boys of Halmstad amused themselves by 
wading in the shallow water to frighten these young Eels out of the mud and clay and catch them. 
e Sundevall, Stockh. L. Hush.-Sallsk. Handl. 1855, p. 92; Trybom, Landtbr. Akad. Handh, Tidskr. 1881, Om s. k. Alvinner etc. 
f See for example Lewin’s remarks in Wittmack, Deutsch. Fisch. Ver. Circular, No. 1 (1875), p. 127. 
3 Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm. 1881, p. 98, and Mitth. Sect. Kiist., Hochseef., Deutsch. Fisch. Ver., 1893, p. 113, not. 2. 
