Inside the Niches headquarters at Clegg Garden is a small library that is open to the public. It has a fine collection of nature-related books. Here is a particularly good piece of nature writing, Rachel Carson's first book, Under the Sea-wind.
Carson devotes two whole chapters of this book to a study of the American eel, Anguilla rostrata. The thirteenth chapter, Journey to the Sea, describes the migration from the rivers and streams of North America to the breeding zone at the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The fifteenth chapter, Return, has the newly born eels journey from their mid-ocean origin to the interior of the North American continent.
Eels are occasionally seen in the Wabash River and no doubt find their way up the Wildcat Creek that goes by Clegg Garden. They are much less common than they were many years ago but the dams that were built for shipping on the Mississippi River prevent many of them from migrating this far. Only a few get through somehow.
Link to Under the Sea-Wind:
Another link to Under the Sea-Wind:
Link to Anguilla rostrata:
Link to Anguilla rostrata in Indiana:
