ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
13 
COMMON EEL'(ANGUILLA *CHRYS YPA) 
Photograph by Elwin R. Sanborn. 
The eel catch in the St. Lawrence River is 
derived from eels belonging to that river and 
its tributaries including Lake Ontario. The 
Lake Ontario catch of eels in 1899 exceeded 
123,000 pounds. The annual yield of all the 
other great lakes combined seldom exceeds 
2,000 pounds, the Falls of Niagara constituing 
an impassable barrier to all kinds of fishes. 
Enormous numbers of young eels gather below 
Niagara in spring and summer, but there is no 
evidence that they ever pass farther by that 
route. 
The eels of the upper lakes may pass up by 
way of the Erie and Welland canals. It may be 
that limited numbers of eels in the Mississippi 
River find means of passing into the upper 
lakes. Whether eels inhabited the upper Great 
Lakes before the construction of canals, the 
writer is not informed. The fishery statistics 
at hand contain no records of eels in Lake Su¬ 
perior. 
Eels enter all our streams from the St. Law¬ 
rence River to the Gulf of Mexico. It is only 
the young eels that move up stream. Adults 
move down stream and do not return. Both 
males and females die at sea after the first and 
only breeding season in their lives. The eel 
is very prolific, each female producing from 
five to ten millions of eggs. 
COLLECTING LOCAL MARINE FISHES 
By C. M. Breder, Jr. 
T HE work of collecting local marine fishes 
with the Well-boat Seahorse was continued 
this year* employing the methods found to 
be so successful during the warmer months of 
1920. These methods consisted chiefly of visit¬ 
ing the various pound and fyke nets in Raritan 
and Sandy Hook Bays at times when the owners 
were removing their catches. Such specimens 
as were thought desirable being purchased and 
placed at once in the well. In addition to this 
a considerable amount of collecting was done 
* See “The Work of the Aquarium Well-boat” by 
C. H. Townsend, Zoo. Soc. Bull., Yol. XXIII, No. 6, 
Nov., 1920; pp. 115-17. 
