can propitiate the latter by prayer; but, as for eels, we must spend twelve drachmas or more merely to get a smell at them."

But his countrymen went further than the people they laughed at; they carried their partiality to a ridiculous extent, and called the fish"the Helen of the dinner-table," because every guest strove, like Paris, to keep it for himself, to the utter exclusion of his neighbour. They imported immense quantities from Sicily, and had a great admiration also for those obtained from the River Strymon (the modern Struma), and Lake Copais (Topolias); and they captured them by a variety of devices, the most usual being hooks baited with large worms or small fish, and wicker baskets with narrow necks, identical in all particulars with the modern baskets. The Romans improved upon this last by adopting earthenware vessels covered with colandershaped lids, and baited with pieces of cuttle-fish and such-like tender morsels, calculated to tickle the eel's somewhat pronounced sense of smell. They also were inordinately fond of it. Their largest supplies came from Lake Benacus (Lago di Garda); but they also cultivated goodly numbers in their private vivaria, and afforded themselves and their guests glorious sport by fishing for them, or by sticking them with three-pronged spears in the mauvais quart d'heure before dinner. The Jews were, and are, like the Scots; the eel is a dish never partaken of by them, although they have always been aware that it possesses scales. With this sole exception, it may be said that all antiquity united in a love for the eel, apotheosised it, apostrophised it-and did not neglect to tell fishy stories about it, and their prowess in landing giant members of the species. One veracious story runs that near Sicyon, in the Peloponnesus, congereels were caught, each one of which required a cart drawn by oxen to convey it to market! One wonders how they landed it, and is led to conjecture that some such thing as the hundred-ton crane, recently devised for the sea-serpent, was anticipated and invented to meet the extraordinary exigencies of this case.

Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were passionately fond of eels. Grants and charters were often regulated by payments made in eels. In one charter we find it stated that twenty fishermen between them furnished sixty thousand to the monastery of Peterborough, and ir another mention is made of a yearly present from the monks o Ramsey to the same monastery. The Gauls were equally enthusi astic; and it has been reserved for a French naturalist to pay the eel the most tremendous and elaborate compliment it has ever had the good fortune to receive. "There are few animals," says thi celebrated gentleman, "whose image one can retrace with as much

157

pleasure as the common eel. . . . We have seen superior instinct in the enormous and terrible shark; but then it was the minister of an insatiable voracity, a sanguinary cruelty, and devastating strength. We have found in electrical fish a power which we may almost call magical; but beauty did not fall to their share. We have had to represent remarkable forms, but nearly all their colours were dull and dark. Glittering shades have struck our view; rarely have they been united with pleasing proportions, more rarely still have they served to adorn a creature of elevated instinct. And this kind of intelligence; this mixture of the glitter of metals and the colours of the rainbow; this rare conformation of all the parts which form one whole, joined in happy agreement-when have we seen all these bestowed where the habits are, so to speak, social, the affections gentle, and the enjoyments in some sort sentimental?" We need not go on quoting this rhodomontade, and it will be sufficient to state that this interesting union, according to our Frenchman, is found in almost absolute perfection in the eel, by virtue of its slender form, its delicate proportions, its elegant colours, its gracious flexions, its easy gyrations, its rapid springs, its superior swimming, its serpentlike movements, its industry, its instinct, its affection for its mate, and its sociability. We are prepared to admit the accuracy of much of this dictum; but we must demur to it on the question of sociability. If the writer of the eulogy had seen eels as we have seen them, fighting among themselves, snapping at, and even devouring, the another, with a voracity essentially eel-like, he would probably have left out all allusion to the "love-at-home" portion of the busitess. As for the rest, we agree with him, making slight allowances, of course, for his "poetical"-or, in plain English, somewhat exaggerated-language.

It is only of quite recent years that we have attained to anything The accurate knowledge of the life, habits, and history of the eel. The ancients held some queer beliefs, and especially as to its esis. Aristotle denied that they were produced from ova, or, as xters had asserted, from the metamorphosis of intestinal worms into ang eels, and advanced the conjecture that they sprang from what

called "the entrails of the earth," which exist-so he thoughtFontaneously in mud and wet earth. They were asexual, he said, d the so-called male and female were two different species. in the Elder said, "They rub themselves against the rocks, and scrapings come to life." The great Gesner even-to come to m times-thought the opinion as to their generation in the and carcases of dead horses was quite a rational one! A German

TOL CCLXXIV,

NO. 1946.

M

can propitiate the latter by prayer; but, as for eels, we must spend twelve drachmas or more merely to get a smell at them."

But his countrymen went further than the people they laughed at; they carried their partiality to a ridiculous extent, and called the fish"the Helen of the dinner-table," because every guest strove, like Paris, to keep it for himself, to the utter exclusion of his neighbour. They imported immense quantities from Sicily, and had a great admiration also for those obtained from the River Strymon (the modern Struma), and Lake Copais (Topolias); and they captured them by a variety of devices, the most usual being hooks baited with large worms or small fish, and wicker baskets with narrow necks, identical in all particulars with the modern baskets. The Romans improved upon this last by adopting earthenware vessels covered with colandershaped lids, and baited with pieces of cuttle-fish and such-like tender morsels, calculated to tickle the eel's somewhat pronounced sense of smell. They also were inordinately fond of it. Their largest supplies came from Lake Benacus (Lago di Garda); but they also cultivated goodly numbers in their private vivaria, and afforded themselves and their guests glorious sport by fishing for them, or by sticking them with three-pronged spears in the mauvais quart d'heure before dinner. The Jews were, and are, like the Scots; the eel is a dish never partaken of by them, although they have always been aware that it possesses scales. With this sole exception, it may be said that all antiquity united in a love for the eel, apotheosised it, apostrophised it-and did not neglect to tell fishy stories about it, and their prowess in landing giant members of the species. One veracious story runs that near Sicyon, in the Peloponnesus, congercels were caught, each one of which required a cart drawn by oxen to convey it to market! One wonders how they landed it, and is led to conjecture that some such thing as the hundred-ton crane, recently devised for the sea-serpent, was anticipated and invented to meet the extraordinary exigencies of this case.

Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were passionately fond of eels. Grants and charters were often regulated by payments made in eels. In one charter we find it stated that twenty fishermen between them furnished sixty thousand to the monastery of Peterborough, and in another mention is made of a yearly present from the monks of Ramsey to the same monastery. The Gauls were equally enthusiastic; and it has been reserved for a French naturalist to pay the eel the most tremendous and elaborate compliment it has ever had the good fortune to receive. "There are few animals," says this celebrated gentleman, "whose image one can retrace with as much

pleasure as the common eel. . . . We have seen superior instinct in the enormous and terrible shark; but then it was the minister of an insatiable voracity, a sanguinary cruelty, and devastating strength. We have found in electrical fish a power which we may almost call magical; but beauty did not fall to their share. We have had to represent remarkable forms, but nearly all their colours were dull and dark. Glittering shades have struck our view; rarely have they been united with pleasing proportions, more rarely still have they served to adorn a creature of elevated instinct. And this kind of intelligence; this mixture of the glitter of metals and the colours of the rainbow; this rare conformation of all the parts which form one whole, joined in happy agreement-when have we seen all these bestowed where the habits are, so to speak, social, the affections gentle, and the enjoyments in some sort sentimental?" We need not go on quoting this rhodomontade, and it will be sufficient to state that this interesting union, according to our Frenchman, is found in almost absolute perfection in the eel, by virtue of its slender form, its delicate proportions, its elegant colours, its gracious flexions, its easy gyrations, its rapid springs, its superior swimming, its serpentlike movements, its industry, its instinct, its affection for its mate, and its sociability. We are prepared to admit the accuracy of much of this dictum; but we must demur to it on the question of sociability. If the writer of the eulogy had seen eels as we have seen them, fighting among themselves, snapping at, and even devouring, one another, with a voracity essentially eel-like, he would probably have left out all allusion to the "love-at-home" portion of the business. As for the rest, we agree with him, making slight allowances, of course, for his "poetical "—or, in plain English, somewhat exaggerated-language.

It is only of quite recent years that we have attained to anything like accurate knowledge of the life, habits, and history of the eel. The ancients held some queer beliefs, and especially as to its genesis. Aristotle denied that they were produced from ova, or, as others had asserted, from the metamorphosis of intestinal worms into young eels, and advanced the conjecture that they sprang from what he called "the entrails of the earth," which exist-so he thoughtspontaneously in mud and wet earth. They were asexual, he said, and the so-called male and female were two different species. Pliny the Elder said, "They rub themselves against the rocks, and their scrapings come to life." The great Gesner even-to come to modern times-thought the opinion as to their generation in the putrid carcases of dead horses was quite a rational one! A German VOL. CCLXXIV, NO. 1946.

M

scientist of some celebrity, forty years ago, stated seriously that they owed their existence to electrical phenomena. People are found in England who will believe that they are "evoluted" horsehairs; and Helmont has gone so far as to make up a recipe for their production. Here it is: "Cut up two turfs covered with May-dew, and lay one upon the other, the grassy sides inwards, and thus expose them to the heat of the sun; in a few hours there will spring from them an infinite quantity of eels." These are only a few of the many remarkable theories that have been advanced. As a matter of fact, eels, like all other teleostean fishes, are oviparous, and the milt and roe, different in appearance from those elements in other species, occur in the same position. It is noteworthy that the spawn is very seldom met with, either in the body of the female or in the neighbourhood of the spawning grounds. Perhaps, when her time is about to come, she keeps out of the way of temptation by lurking in the mud at the bottom of the stream, and it is notorious that she only migrates towards the open sea during dark cloudy nights. Even the appearance of the moon in the heavens is enough to stop her progress; the faintest sound or glimmer of strange light will send her and her mate into hiding among the stones or at the bottom, there to remain until all is silent and safe again. The ova are not met with in the neighbourhood of the spawning grounds, for the very sufficient reason that, as a rule, the spawning grounds are not accessible to man. Eels-especially the broad-nosed varietywill deposit their ova and thrive in ponds which have no communication with the ocean, but the vast majority of them go down the river channels in autumn towards the sea, the spawning grounds being at the estuaries or in harbours, where the brackish water is warmer than at either extreme of inland river or open ocean—and eels are very averse to cold. In the winter they sleep much, and, like rattlesnakes, congregate in large numbers in one spot, where they bury themselves a foot or more deep in places which are sometimes left bare by the tide.

In the spring the return migration occurs, and the young and the parent fish that have been so fortunate as to survive all the dangers surrounding them, turn their noses landwards, proceeding sometimes in concert, but more often independently, and always in the daytime It is one of the most beautiful and interesting sights in all natural history to witness the migration of the countless millions of elvers that commence in early spring and continue during nearly the whole of summer to pass up the rivers of England looking for a homewhich comparatively few of them, by-the-by, ever find, thanks to the