EEL'S EGGS.

Shannon News, 8 February 1927, Page 2

EEL'S EGGS.

FOUND-BY A WOMAN. MYSTERY OF THE CENTURIES. New Bedford (Mass), Nov. 27. From the depths of the ocean south of Bermuda have come the first eggs of the American eel know to science. The discovery was made by a 25-year-old woman scientist, Mrs. Marie Poland Fish, Biologist of the United States Bureau of Fisheries station at Woods Hole, Mass., it is revealed in the New Bedford Standard. Although modern investigations has solved much of the baffling life story of the eel, all previous efforts to find the egg of either the common American or European eel have been unavailing. The discovery arose directly from the expedition of Dr. William Beebe to the Sargasso Sea a year ago, and has been rated as possibly the most scientifically important single outcome of the Arcturus expedition. Eels' Antecedents a Mystery. The specimens which later were de-. monstrated to be eel eggs were brought up on the edge of Challenger Park, ten miles south-west of Bermuda. But only after months devoted to research and. vertification of her find was Mrs. Fish prepared to announce her discovery. The origin of the eel has been a mystery since ancient times. The inability of the early Greeks to find eels' eggs or eels ready to spawn led them to attribute their paternity to Jupiter. •As has been established since, there was good reason why scientists failed to discover eels' eggs, for the common American and European eels are the only creatures known which live in fresh water but go to sea to spawn, an exact reversal of the habits of many other marine creatures. Lowly Shrimp Helped Some. Mrs. Fish, Larval expert of the expedition, identified the eggs during her work of sorting out a mass of marine specimens brought up in trawling on the vessel's return voyage. But for a ehrimp to which they adhered they would never have reached the surface quarter-inch net. The eggs were a tenth of an inch in width. The only way to identify a marine egg accurately is to hatch it. One July j morning a year ago one egg hatched. A feeble, transparent, ribbon-shaped infant emerged, which was obviously an eel. Fortunately, in its two days of existence the pre-larva developed to a stage where it could be recognised as a younger brother of the smallet prelarva previously discovered, a find made by Schmidt, Danish scholar, in 1916. Mrs. Fish is the wife of Dr. Charles J. Fish, Government Biologist. She is , a daughter of Mr. Addison Poland, -.' Dean/of Newark, N.J., High Schools, iiiand, graduate of:Smith.College in ■'"■■' j - -- '--'-*' " '-• ■'. -■ ■■■••■ - --■' .