Morning journal and courier., 1891-07-20
FUNNY FACTS ABOUT EELs.


Commission VIII Not Give AWAY
Their Eggs.
From the New York SUM-
Every now and then some one applies to
the fish commission at Washington for
consignment of cells eggs wherewith to
stock a pond or stream. The request is
invariably refused, not because there is any
intention to be disobliging, but for the rea-
son that nobody in this world knows
whether eels lay eggs or not If they do,
man has never beheld them, and to get
hold of of any is quite out of the question.
In case you want to establish eels in your
water preserves, you can buy young ones
by the pailful at a cheap rate, and they will
grow big enough to eat or send to the mar
ket within three years.
1t may fairly be said that the cells, as to
its breeding, is the most mysterious ami
NAL in existence. Its method of progaga-
ton has puzzled science for centuries and
has been a subject of more or less supersti-
tious speculation among many peoples for
thousands of years. The ancient Egyp-
tians had their own theories respecting the
matter. Some authorities have contended
X
in some strange manner became vitalized.
Others have held that they were generated
spontaneously from slime, while others
still have gravely advanced the belief that
they came from the skins of old cells, or
even from similar exuvie of water snakes
That eels mate with water snakes is very
generally accepted as truth. Most popu-
lar among people who get their living from
| the water, however, is the theory that eels
H., .Nf,- Eet,z
The Sandman fisherman assert that they
are produced by certain kind of water
beetle, which for this reason is called
''mother of eels." The Greek poets, who
fathered all children otherwise unaccount-
ed for upon Jupiter, declared that this god
was the progenitor of the eel.
All this mystery about the eel, as science
has learned within the last few years, is
due to the fact that it lays its eggs, or
| brings forth its young alive, in the sea,
where no one has chance to observe the
process. Other fishes, like the shad, leave
| the ocean to spawn in fresh water streams,
but this curious and slippery customer
| does precisely the reverse. The young
| eels newly born or Matched, leave the salt
water and make their way in armies up
| the rivers inland. Obstacles apparently
| insurmountable they use the utmost inge-
nuity in passing, even travelling considera-
BILE distances upon dry land in order to get
| around an obstruction. In the spring and
summer any visitor at Niagara who de-
scends beneath the great sheet of water
at the foot of the falls will see literally
| hundreds of cart loads of small cells wrig-
| Cling over the rocks and squirming in the
| whirlpools. OF course it is impossible for
them to get over the falls, and thus it hap
1 pens that, although eels have always been
| plentiful in Lake Ontario, there We're none
in Lake Erie until they were planted in
the latter body of water artifcially.
Inasmuch as eels must go to the sea in
order to propagate their species, they are
found not to multiply at all when placed
| in ponds that are landlocked, although in
such places they will grow rapidly and be
healthy. 1t costs SO little TO purchase
young ones by the quantity that this is no
obstacle to the usefulness of stocking in
land waters with these fish. They have
many very important advantages from the
economic point of view, inasmuch as they
viii feed on anything dead or alive, will
thrive in water clear or muddy and at any
temperature, and require no looking out
for. However, in rivers like Susquehan-
ma, where gill nets are used, eels are very
undesirable. 1t is not unusual, upon
hauling the nets in that stream and in
others further south, to find that the catch
has been entirely eaten up by myriads of
the squirming robbers, which have left
little beside heads and backbones 1t has
been found advantageous by the fish COM
mission to plant cells in the upper great
lakes and in the Mississippi They have
also been introduced very successfully in
California.
In all probability cells lay eggs, just as'do
nearly all other fishes. The only differ
ence is that they deposit them in the sea,
instead of in fresh water. 1t is believed
that the mother eel dies soon after she has
spawned. For couple of centuries past
efforts have been made by eminent scienti,
fic men to discover the organs of genera
ton in male and female eels. 1t is only
possible now to discover the difference be
tween the sexes by microscopic examina-
ton. About fifteen years ago the celebra-
ted DR.. Virchow of Berlin published an
| advertisement for a female eel bearing
eggs, offering a considerable prize for the
| specimen Within a short time the adver-
tisement was copied all over Europe, and
| the Herr Doctor received such enormous
quantities of eels in packages that the af'
fair became quite serious. So many thou
sand pounds of the very perishable article
were consigned to him thatit was an i'm
portant question how to get rid OF the ma
terial, and one of the comic papers sug-
gested that perhaps it would be well if he
: should make regulation requiring all
samples to be sent smoked. The best way
to cook eels is to cut them into sections,
after they have been skinned properly, dip
them in egg, roll the pieces in crumbs and
portant than that the bsckbones should be
taken out before the attempt is made to
bite them through.
Il