234 Habits of the Eel 



been observed entering the Esk, at Musselburgh, but these 

 we never saw in the Tweed. In this river, although it is 

 probably better stocked with trouts than any other river in 

 Scotland, yet, as I have already said, I am convinced the eels 

 are still more numerous : but the latter are not good, having 

 far more of the peculiar Jishy^ or, rather eely taste than those 

 got at Linlithgow, or in the Leven, as they descend from the 

 loch of that name, the only eel fisheries in Scotland. 



I have now ascertained that swarms of young eels (that is, 

 the fry of the eel) regularly enter the mouths of most of the 

 rivers in the north : several fishers have informed me that 

 they do so in the Ness, the Beauly, and the Conon. In the 

 latter river, they begin to run up about the 20th of May ; a 

 few days sooner or later according to the season, or, mayhap, 

 some other circumstances ; and their appearance is always 

 the forerunner of the ascent of the grilses. The time at 

 which the eels descend the river in autumn (which, no doubt, 

 they regularly do) does not seem to have been observed.* 



When they enter the river, it is in a slender column of 

 about 1 \ ft. or 2 ft. wide, along the very edge of the stream ; 

 and so close together that a yard in length will contain many 

 hundreds of them. After that they seem to separate, pro- 

 bably as they get stronger, or more accustomed to the fresh 

 water. It is not a little curious that they do not appear to be 

 preyed upon by the gulls, or any other piscivorous bird. The 

 column has neither forerunners nor stragglers, and passes 

 usually in the course of three days. The eels are of about 

 the thickness of a crowquill, and the column of them has 

 been traced unbroken, from the tideway, for about four miles 

 up the river, to the junction of the Raasay, or Black water, 

 which joins the Conon from the north-west. 



A salmon-fisher, in whose veracity I have full confidence, 

 has informed me that he was induced to try if they were 

 easily stopped in their march. For this purpose he took a 

 broad and thin stone, and set it on edge at right angles to 

 their course, and for a short time they accumulated in myriads 

 on the lee side of it. Their ascent up the Ness and the 

 Beauly is equally well known ; and another salmon-fisher, of 

 much experience, and possessed of equal observation and 



* I have, since a boy, known that the eels descend the river Yarrow in 

 the end of September; and I concluded their destination was the sea. 

 And in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, article " Yarrow," 

 it is said that in the end of September, such numbers of eels descend the 

 river from St. Mary's Loch, that people fording the river have been over- 

 turned by them. I know this to be a monstrous exaggeration ; and the 

 wonder is, how such an incredible story got there. 



