EELS AND THE EEL QUESTION. 431 



The Greeks and Romans seem to be first in their regard for the eel, 

 and many tales come down to us of the esteem in which he was held in 

 their ancient times. The Romans cultivated eels, tamed them, made 

 pets of them; and the orator, Hortensius, rival of Cicero, wept bitterly 

 at the death of his favorite mursena. They even sacrificed their 

 slaves to the eel ponds, a practice quite possible to men who plundered 

 nature to serve peacocks' brains and parrots' tongues at their tables. 

 The Egyptians are said by one account to have abhorred eels utterly, 

 but it is certain that at one time eel-worship shows them to have also 

 judged the eel to rank with the gods. The Scotch taboo the eel entirely, 

 while the Hebrew race placed it under the ban which applies to scale- 

 less creatures of the fish tribe. The conger eel is scaleless, but the 

 common eel does not deserve this calumny, for its minute oblong scales, 

 curiously arranged in groups instead of imbricated regularly as in the 

 common fishes, are easily seen on careful inspection. The ancient 

 Anglo-Saxon, on the other hand, was passionately fond of eels, which 

 passed current as a medium of exchange. The race has always been 

 partial to them and Londoners of to-day consume them in great quan- 

 tities. Some ancient peoples used them in sacred offerings. Ter- 

 racina, a seaport of Italy, being besieged by the Turks, the inhabitants 

 vowed twenty thousand eels per annum to St. Benedict. The account 

 relates that a 'fond memory of stewed eels' touched the saint and the 

 siege was raised. He got his eels, and the Benedictine monks have 

 been accustomed to render the yearly tribute to their saintly patron. 



The prominence of eels among fishes is of course largely dependent 

 upon their great abundance and almost world-wide distribution. Our 

 common American eel is found from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 

 Mexico, but is absent from Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean and is 

 present in the eastern Pacific only by transplantation at the hands of 

 man. It inhabits both the sea and inland waters, but was unknown 

 above the falls of Niagara until artificially introduced. Its natural 

 history even yet is not as well known as would be expected. Most 

 fishes which live alternately in fresh and salt water are anadromous, 

 and feeling the sea their proper home migrate at certain seasons up the 

 rivers, where they spawn in fresh waters and return to the salt until 

 the next season. But the eel has been supposed to reverse this process, 

 and, being at home in the sweet water, to descend to the sea to deposit 

 the eggs, which are numbered in millions, and then die, its span of life 

 naturally ended. The young eels resulting, driven by the impelling 

 force of instinct, must then find their way back to the haunts of their 

 parents. Well-known facts speak for this view. Young eels in the 

 spring are known to ascend streams in countless numbers, and the 

 phenomenon has long been well recognized as eel-fairs, or eel-fares. 



