File:American food and game fishes - a popular account of all the species found in America, north of the equator, with keys for ready identification, life histories and methods of capture (1902) (14782675215).jpg

Identifier: americanfoodgam00jord (find matches)
Title: American food and game fishes : a popular account of all the species found in America, north of the equator, with keys for ready identification, life histories and methods of capture
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Jordan, David Starr, 1851-1931 Evermann, Barton Warren, 1853-1932
Subjects: Fishes
Publisher: New York : Doubleday, Page & Co.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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onged orless interesting. The details need not be given here. Not until1873 was anyone successful. On November 29 of that year, Dr.Syrski, then at Trieste, made the important discovery, whichmany other investigators have since verified. It is now comparatively easy to distinguish the sexes of theeel. In the first place the male is smaller than the female ofthe same age. The ovaries of the female are two yellowish orreddish-white elongate bodies, as broad as ones finger, lying along-side the backbone, arranged in numerous transverse folds, extendingthroughout the entire length of the abdominal cavity. These twobodies are so large as not to be easily overlooked, but they containsuch a quantity of fatty cells, and the eggs imbedded in themare so small and delicate, that one might easily believe, evenafter a superficial microscopic examination, that the whole organconsists only of fat. The testes, or spermatic organs of themale, are not ribbon-shaped like the ovaries, but represent two 78
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The Common Eel longitudinal rows, each with about 50 lobules. These spermaticorgans can be distinguished at once from the ovaries, not onlyby their lobular form, but also by their shining glassy appear-ance. In 1877 Jacoby made careful investigations of a number ofproblems concerning the eel, and since then other investigatorshave worked upon the same problems, until now all essentialor important f^icts in the life history of the eel are well under-stood. These may be briefly stated as follows: The common eel spawns in salt water, usually off themouths of rivers, on mudbanks, to which they go in greatnumbers at the spawning time, which is in the fall. On thesemudbanks the eggs are laid, fertilization takes place, and theyoung eels develop within two or three months after hatching. Atthe beginning of the second spring these young find their wayto mouths of the rivers, which they ascend in incredible numbers.In these freshwater streams and lakes they remain until of adultsize, when they

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