386 



MUR.ENID.E. 





During the cold months of the year Eels remain imbedded 

 in mud ; and large quantities are frequently taken by Eel- 

 spears in the soft soils of harbours and banks of rivers, from 

 which the tide recedes, and leaves the surface exposed for 

 several hours every day. The Eels bury themselves twelve 

 or sixteen inches deep, near the edge of the navigable chan- 

 nel, and generally near some of the many land-drains, the 

 water of which continues to run in its course over the mud 

 into the channel during the whole time the tide is out. In 

 Somersetshire the people know how to find the holes in the 

 banks of rivers in which Eels are laid up, by the hoar-frost 

 not lying over them as it does elsewhere, and dig them out 

 in heaps. The practice of searching for 

 Eels in mud in cold weather is not con- 

 fined to this country ; Dr. Mitchell, in 

 his paper on the Fishes of New York, 

 published in the Transactions of the Li- 

 terary and Philosophical Society of that 

 city, says, " In the winter Eels lie con- 

 cealed in the mud, and are taken in great 

 numbers by spears." Thus imbedded in 



