Electric eel

“ Certain fishes have the power of storing a large quantity of electricity, which is used at will to paralyze and kill prey or enemies. The electric eel can kill small fishes at a distance, it is said, of fifteen feet; and they sometimes kill the horses which are driven into the pools for the purpose of exhausting and capturing the eels. The electricity, is stored in a peculiar tissue of large cells or tubes which act like a battery of so many Leyden-jars. Apparently nervous force is here converted into electricity. After giving several shocks, the creature is exhausted for a time. ”

“ Electric eels are found in great numbers in the creeks and ditches about Pará. The largest I have seen was about four inches in diameter, and five feet in length. Their shock, to me, was unpleasant, but not painful. Some persons, however, are much more susceptible than others. Captain Lee, of the Dolphin, could not feel at all the shock of an eel, which affected a lady so strongly as to cause her to reel, and nearly fall. Animals seem more powerfully affected than men. ”

“ But when I compare my battery with the battery which nature has given to the electrical eel and the torpedo, how insignificant are human operations compared with those of the Architect of living beings! The stupendous electric eel in the Polytechnic Institution, when he seeks to kill his prey, encloses him in a circle; then, by volition, causes the voltaic force to be produced, and the hapless creature is instantly killed. It would probably require ten thousand of my artificial batteries to effect the same object, as the creature is killed instanter on receiving the shock. ”

“ But Nature has known how to turn this as well as her other powers to her own use. She has her living galvanic batteries, such as the torpedo and the electric eel, both of which secure their prey by paralysing it with their electric discharges. ”

“ The electric action of the eel depends entirely upon its own will and a shock can be given whether it is touched by one or both hands to complete the circuit. When wounded, their power is almost destroyed and they are able to give only feeble shocks. ”

“ Perhaps the crudest and most evident illustration of the production of electricity by animal metabolism is exhibited in the electric fishes: the torpedo, the Gymnotus (electric eel) , the Malapterurus (electric catfish) , the skate and others. In these forms, it is true, we find a special electric apparatus, consisting of some hundreds of columns made up of millions of superimposed plates or discs, arranged transversely to the length of the columns and separated from one another by an albuminous liquid, thus resembling a voltaic pile. ”

“ There appears, however, to be little doubt that animal electricity is the real cause of this curious phenomenon, and that the force which is expended in the torpedo and electric eel, in giving shocks accompanied by slight electric sparks, may develop itself in these insects by producing a continuous light. ”

“ There is also the family of Torpedo Rays, quite distinct from the better-known South American Electric Eel, but able to administer electric shocks strong enough to render a man for the time helpless. They are found in many waters—large creatures, rounded in shape, smooth-bodied, thick, with longish tails.
Worst of all are the huge ungainly Eagle-Rays and Sea-devils, with their powerful grinding teeth. These grow to an enormous size; and the larger ones are quite capable of upsetting a big boat. ”

“ But in my youthful confidence I had forgotten it, for the use of it against a human except in public mortal combat was a dire offense against the Marinoid laws.
You are amazed and perhaps incredulous at this physiological fact? You need not be—a very similar condition occurs on your own Earth. Indeed, only the ignorant can dare be rashly incredulous. In your own waters, as you would know if you ever bothered to apprise yourself of the fact, there exists the electric eel. Your learned men call it gymnotus electricus. It uses against its enemies very similar tactics to those Og used against me. ”

“ This power of stinging seems to be a wise provision in the economy of the animal, for the purpose of rendering helpless and numbing its prey, to make them easier of capture and subsequent deglutition, just as the Mysotis, or electric eel, with like purpose puts to a very important and practical use its electro-battery shocks. ”

“ The eel had been challenged by the ameboid monster, and they were fighting for possession of him—the common prey.
he water became an inferno of whipping and lashing movements, of whitish fibers and spearing thrusts of a glistening black electric body. Unquestionably the eel was using its numbing electric shock on its foe. Time and time again Phil felt the amoeba grasp him, searingly, only to be wrenched free by the force of the currents the combat stirred up. ”

“ To receive the shock it is necessary that the creature, whatever it may be—in most cases, probably, a fish—should touch the eel’s body in two places, for otherwise the electric circuit will not be completed, and there will be no discharge. ”

“ The eel voluntarily performs the cerebral operation on the electric matter which is continuous from itself through the air to the marked prey, which effects instantaneous removal of the same matter from the prey; which permits medium of space at the same instant to give the de-electrised part the death-blow. ”

“ At a later date, the American physicians, Garden and Williamson, showed that as the fluid discharged by that fish affects the same parts that are affected by the electric fluid; as it excites sensations perfectly similar; as it kills and stuns animals in the same manner; as it is conveyed by the same bodies that carry the electric fluid and refuses to be conveyed by others that refuse to take the fluid, it must be the electric fluid itself, and the shock given by the eel must be the electric shock. ”

“ I amused them all very much by showing how the electric shock from the eels could pass from one person to another. We joined hands in a line whilst I touched the biggest and freshest of the animals on the head with the point of my hunting-knife. We found that this experiment did not succeed more than three times with the same eel when out of the water: for, the fourth time, the shock was scarcely perceptible. All the fishes found in the holes (besides the eels) belonged to one species, a small kind of Acarí, or Loricaria, a group whose members have a complete bony integument. ”

“ Merely to poke the eel, therefore, with one finger would do one no harm, whereas to catch hold of a large one might even cause death. Yet in spite of the dangerous power it possesses, the torpedo is eaten by the natives of the countries in which it is found, for it is fat and succulent, and its electric battery, if once it can [139] be got rid of, does not affect its taste, which is excellent. ”

“ It proved to be an attack of electric eels upon the first mule, which had attempted to ford the lagoon. The animal had nearly reached the opposite shore before the attack was made, and thus, the first mule had escaped with only a few shocks from the invisible torpedoes. The other pack mules, just entering the stream, were turned upon savagely by the concealed serpents, and were wildly and frantically turning back, when we came upon the scene. Their distended nostrils and bulging, terrified eyes, with excited snorting and plunging, would have made a perfect picture of agonized terror. ”

“ All the inhabitants of the waters dread the society of the gymnoti. Lizards, tortoises, and frogs, seek pools where they are secure from the electric action. It became necessary to change the direction of a road near Uritucu, because the electric eels were so numerous in one river, that they every year killed a great number of mules, as they forded the water with their burdens. ”

“ As much, however, as my battery is inferior to that of the electric fish, so is man superior to the same animal. Man is endowed with a power of mind competent to appreciate the force of matter, and is thus enabled to make the battery. The eel can but use the specific apparatus which nature has bestowed upon it.”
Some observations upon the electric current around the gymnotus, and notes of experiments with this and other electric fish, will be found in Things not generally Known, p. ”

“ In England itself, on the other hand, we have at least one kind of fish which exemplifies the opposite or migratory solution of the dry pond problem, and that is our familiar friend the common eel. The ways of eels are indeed mysterious, for nobody has ever yet succeeded in discovering where, when, or how they manage to spawn; nobody has ever yet seen an eel's egg, or caught a female eel in the spawning condition, or even observed a really adult male or female specimen of perfect development. All the eels ever found in fresh water are immature and undeveloped creatures. ”

“ The party of Naturalists were surprised when they learned that it would be necessary to use about thirty half-wild Horses to help them fish for the Electrical Eel, and that the severe shocks of electricity given by the Eels must be expended upon the Horses before it would be safe to touch the Eels. ”

“ It is interesting to inquire how the young eels circumvent the Falls of the Rhine and get into Lake Constance, or how their kindred on the other side of the Atlantic overcome the obstacle of Niagara; but it is more important to lay emphasis on the variety of habitats which this fish is trying--the deep waters, the open sea, the shore, the river, the pond, and even, it may be, a little taste of solid earth. It seems highly probable that the common eel is a deep-water marine fish which has learned to colonise the freshwaters. ”

“ The climbing fish and an ophiocephalus of the East Indies and the Doras costatus of South America are able, when the ponds and swamps in which they live are dried up, to travel for several hours over the land to find places affording more water. The eel has been said to travel for considerable distances from one pond to another. It is certain that eels are able to live for a considerable time out of the water, and, though the fact has not been scientifically established, there is no reason to doubt that they can travel. ”

“ They turn into glass-eels, about 2-1/2 inches long, like a knitting-needle in girth. They begin to move towards the distant shores and rivers, and they may be a year and a half old before they reach their destination and go up-stream as elvers. Those that ascend the rivers of the Eastern Baltic must have journeyed three thousand miles. It is certain that no eel ever matures or spawns in fresh water. It is practically certain that all the young eels ascending the rivers of North Europe have come in from the Atlantic, some of them perhaps from the Azores or further out still. ”

“ This fish possesses a strong electrical power, and is capable of giving a very considerable shock through a number of persons forming a communication with it. This power was known to the ancients, but exaggerated by them with all the fables natural to ignorance; and it is only recently that the power has been ascertained to be truly electric. It is conducted by the same substances as electricity, and intercepted by the same. In a minute and a half, no fewer than fifty shocks have been received from this animal, when insulated. ”

“ But the eels, as a family, are a saltwater group, most of their allies, like the congers and murænas, being exclusively confined to the sea, and only a very small number of aberrant types having ever taken to invading inland waters. If the life-history of the salmon, however, has given rise to as much controversy as the Mar peerage, the life-history of the eel is a complete mystery. To begin with, nobody has ever so much as distinguished between male and female eels; except microscopically, eels have never been seen in the act of spawning, nor observed anywhere with mature eggs. ”

“ It must be practised when the tide is flowing, as the eels come in to feed with the flood tide. The worms should be sea-worms, dug out of the mud at low water. Common land-worms turn quite white in salt water, and are of very little use. I have also taken the silver fresh-water eel by “bobbing” in the river Loddon, and in the Thames at Henley.
The sea sand-eel is a very bony fish and exceedingly inferior, but it commands a good sale amongst the lower orders owing to its cheapness. Its size rarely exceeds twelve inches in length, and its thickness is no more than that of a man’s finger. ”

“ I felt mean as I picked up the useless thing and looked far away to the great nest with its hungry young. I was no better than the bald eagle, the lazy robber-baron, who had stolen the dinner of these same young hawks the day before.
Their mother had been fishing up the river and had caught a tremendous eel. An eel can hold out to wriggle a very long time. He has no vitals. Even with talon-tipped claws he is slippery and more than a clawful ”

“ The annual migration seaward of the sharp-nosed eels gives rise to the valuable eel-fisheries of the English rivers, in which the fish are intercepted by wicker traps or eel-sets placed across the river, and in one of which 70,000 have been caught in one night. The moving of the fish is done in the night and always in a dark night; and it is liable to be interrupted by a change of wind, a clap of thunder, or a clearing away of the clouds. What becomes of the immense numbers of eels that descend to the sea every season has never been found out. ”