The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-08-26
RURAL sAvANTs ON THE EEL.
Some Points About Eel Life That
Science should Make Note OF.
From the New York Sun.

H..
From the New York Sun.
Il notice that science is little mixed
yet on the question of how cells propa-
gate and perpetuate their species. and'
can't just exactly make up its mind
how to settle it," said New York sports
man, but if science should take few
trips out along sundry waters where
the native resident hobs for cells, and
should interview one OF the rurul saw
ants on the subject, II would get some
ideas that might help it along toward
solving the mystery OF the eel.
Il was fishing for pickerel once in
Lake Lamoka, high among the hills of
Western New York. and found that the
lake was literally alive with cells. / asked
a bewhiskered and wise-looking citizen
of the locality, who was fishing for bull
heads, how he accounted for cells being
so plentiful in that lake.
Well, sir said he I've saw cells
from most everywheres-salt water, fresh
water, muddy water-clear water, still
water, and running water, but 1 never
see no cells from any water that had
such coverin' of slime on 'em as the
cells in this here lake does. And that's
why cells is so uncommon plenty here.
They can't help themselves. There's a
good CROWN o. jest the right kind o.
weeds on the bottom of the lake, and the
bushes hangs so low on shore that they
dip into the water every here and there.
So you see, the old cells has the best
kind o. rubin places. and they leave
such a tremendous coatin' of their out
side GOVERN there that the young cells
that grow out of it is simply barrels
full every year. Believe It! Believe
that's the way cells preedl Why, don't
1 know it is? Didn't nobody never tell
you that the Shiny coatin' on cells is
jest like the inside of a hens egg that
matches out the chicken? Jest ezac'ly;
only it matches cells 'sted o. chickens.
Why. everybody knows that around
herer
And found that if all the people in
that locality didn't know it they firmly
believed they did, which was just as good.
One veteran believer that cells were hatch
ed from eel slime deposited on weeds and
bushels, said that when he was a boy
the bushes were thicker along the shores
of the lake than they were now.
L member one season. said he that
somethin' got to ailin' the weeds at the
bottom o. the lake, and the old cells didn't
seem to banker after 'em, and conse-
quently they come out and rubbed their
selves more'n usual on the shore bushes.
1 never seen such bearin o. young cells
before nor sence. and there never was.
The bushes hung fuller of EN- than cur'n'
bushes does O. cur'n's, and before they
got ready to drop into the water and
go to pasturin on the bottom, the shores
o. the lake looked as If a bitin' frost had
struck it. The cells had eat ev'ry leaf
off o. every bush in sight
That is the way they account for the
propagation of cells in old Steuben county.
Just over the line, in Potter county, Penn
sylvania, and all along the Allegheny wat
ers, the old-time fishermen, found, had
a theory of their own about how eel re-
production came about. Their belief is
that the hellbender, ewhose habitat is
the waters of the Ohio basin, is the father
of cells. The hellbender has legs, is prob
ably a lizard, but surely is hideous and
the female hellbender lays about 100 eggs,
fastened together as IN q chain like
frogs eggs. Yet men on Allegheny waters
who claim the privilege of voting and eX-
pect Christian burial, will soemnly tell
you that from those eggs come cells The
strangest part of this insistence is that
there are no cells in Allegheny waters, nor
in any waters of the Ohio or Mississippi
basins, except what may have resulted
from experiments in transplanting stock
from native waters. l took 1t upon my
self once to try and convince believer
in this hellbender paternity of cells Of the
utter impossibility of it, and thought to
clinch my argument by the fact of there
being no cells in hellbender waters.
Course there ain'tr exclaimed the
hellbender advocate. And why? The min
ute cells gifts their eyes on hellbenders,
and 1t by and by breaks in on 'em that
hellbenders are their paps, way they skit-
ten. They pull out O. them waters like
the children of Israel making tracks out of
Egypt, and they never come back Why,
dog on it, Hellbenders is stockin' all your
streams over east with cells, if you only
know'd it!
II met a plausible old fisherman once
near the headwaters of the Charlotte river
which is one of the New York state head
waters of the Susquehanna river, rising
within stone tossing distance of the Della
ware river, in Schoharie county, who as
sured me that the eel was at it's begin
ming, but the egg of a water beetle, de-
posted in the shell of the fresh water
clam or mussel There it Matched and
became a troublesome parasite Of the
mussel, which at last opened its shell and |
died, whereupon the parasite, then slen- !
der worm went forth into the stream, |
grew betimes and waxed fat, and thus be- |
came an eel. This amazing theory of the |
development Of an eel once found believ
ers among the fishermen of the Drowned |
Lands of the Waikiki, in Orange county. |
New York, and Sussex county, New Jer- |
sey In the upper Delaware Valley IL is |
maintained by old rivermen /
that the lamprey is the male eel. and that /
all other cells are females; that nine of |
every ten eel eggs Matched are silver /
cells or females, and the remaining one a |
male or lamprey.
within the past few years wall-eyed /