The conclusion is now clear that the Eels of Europe at any rate have a spawning area in common; the two Italian doctors were wrong in supposing that Eels spawned in the Mediterranean. In such ocean depths certainly below, probably far below, the one hundred fathoms[621] line the generative organs of the Eels develope, and in due though protracted time the females spawn.[622]
Their eggs float for a time; the young, when hatched out, pass through a metamorphosis and are known in one stage as Leptocephalus brevirostris. This larval form, which is flat and transparent and has a very small head, drifts with the ocean currents towards the coasts of Europe, where it passes through a series of metamorphoses into the Elver or young Eel, which in March and April swims up English rivers. The fecundity of the Eel, were it not for the system of check and countercheck devised by Nature, would in time become a danger; for the ovary of a female thirty-two inches in length has been estimated to contain no fewer than 10,700,000 eggs![623]
But however legitimate or illegitimate their methods may seem, all praise should be rendered to our ancient anglers. Especially so, when we call to mind that, as they possessed not running lines, reels, gut, nor probably landing nets, the playing of large fish must have required more delicate manipulation and the landing presented far greater difficulties than to us, armed as we are with all these and many other appliances.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NINE FISH MOST HIGHLY PRIZED
I subjoin a list of the nine fish which found most favour in Greece and Rome. This, although necessarily rough and tentative, can (I believe), be justified by an examination of our authors.[624] To anyone who on the strength of one author may be dissatisfied with the place allotted to a particular fish, I would point out that since the oracles of taste vary with the ages, it is essential to hold in mind the exact date at which a passage was written.
Then, again, the Greek saw not eye to eye, or ate not tooth to tooth, with the Roman. The verdict of the opsophagists or, as these often differed, of the plain people of one century not infrequently reversed that of the last.
As with us at the present day it is hardly feasible to adjudge definitely to what fish belongs the primacy of palate, so was it with the ancients. In the case of the Greeks the task is impossible. Every one of our nine can boast at least half a dozen champions. Then, again, as regards the epoch of individual supremacy we are without any guiding statement, such as Pliny’s that in his time the Scarus was reckoned the king of fish.[625]