Stories of Fish & Sea Creatures
ONE reason why many of the more gentle and less offensive of the wild animals of North America, such as the deer, the bear, the fox, and the squirrel, are so afraid of man, and flee at the first sight or sound of him or his approach, doubtless is because they have learned, by the crack of his gun and the snap of his traps, that he is their deadly enemy.
It is a well-known fact that in many of our large city parks, where squirrels and wild birds and men, women, and children mingle freely together, and where shooting or molesting these animals and birds is prohibited, in time they become very tame, and not infrequently will come close enough to eat out of one's hand.
One might not suppose that fish, one of the shyest and most elusive of all living creatures, could be tamed in this way. But Mr. Thornton W. Burgess, one of America's great lovers of animals and favorite animal-story writers, tells us that when he was a boy living near Cape Cod, there was a woman there whose home bordered on a small lake or pond, and that all the fish and several large eels in her section of the pond knew her. At certain hours of the day she fed them, and at these feeding-times they would crowd in around the wharf. So little afraid were they of this kind-hearted and friendly woman, he says, that they would permit her to lift them out of the water with her hands.
This is only another illustration of the wonders that may be accomplished through kindness and kind treatment.
WHERE eels came from was not definitely known until recently.
That young eels ascended the rivers and streams, and that the older and larger eels descended the streams and rivers at the breeding season, was known. But where the little eels came from, and where the big eels that swam down-stream went to-how far out to sea they went, and where their breeding-grounds were was not known. But the mystery has finally been solved. Scientists have searched until they have found out.
Writing on this subject, Thornton W. Burgess, in one of his "Nature Radio " studies, published in the Washington Sunday Post, says
"Our common eel is a fish of mystery. Its life history is a marvelous tale.
"It is a curious fact that, according to the scientists who have made a study of the subject, no human being has ever seen the ripe spawn or eggs of an eel. No one ever saw an eel ready to spawn. This does not include the lamper-eel, which, properly speaking, is a lamprey, and is not an eel at all. It is much lower in the scale of life than the true eel, which is a true fish.
"And the reason that no human being has ever seen the ripe spawn of an eel is because eels spawn in salt water in the Sargasso S And the astonishing thing is that this also the breeding-place of all European eels; yet American eel has ever been found in Europe an no European eel has ever been found in America.
" We know that many fish which live in salt": water come up into fresh water for spawning:,.,, But this is a case where fish spend nearly their whole lives in fresh water and then go down to ` salt water to spawn, and make a tremendous journey, at that, after they reach the salt water. The European eels must travel in the ocean be- . tween 2,000 and 3,000 miles, while our American eels have to travel hundreds of miles, and it is definitely known that they never return. They breed once and die. Then, in turn, the tiny eels, called elvers, have that long journey to make before they can begin to go up the rivers and brooks. The spawning is supposed to take place in a very great depth of water.
"So you may know this, that no matter where you find an eel-no matter how far from the coast or how isolated the body of water in which you find that eel-its birthplace was somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, off the West Indies.
"Said I not truly that the eel is a fish of mystery, and that its life story is marvelous?"
