Class IV. E E 



M3 



change of habitation, but alfo for the fake of prey, 

 feeding on the fnails it finds in its paflage. 



During winter it beds itfelf deep in the mud, 

 and continues in a (late of reft like the ferpent 

 kind. It is very impatient of cold, and will ea- 

 gerly take fhelter in a whifp of ftraw flung into a 

 pond in fevere weather, which has fometimes been 

 praclifed as a method of taking them. Albertus* 

 goes fo far as to fay, that he has known eels to 

 fhelter in a hay- rick, yet all perifhed through ex- 

 cefs of cold. 



It has been obferved, that in the river Nynej^ 

 there ;s a variety of fmall eel, with a leffer head and 

 narrower mouth than the common kind, that it is 

 found in cluflers in the bottom of the river, and is 

 called the Bed- eel : thefe are fometimes roufed up by 

 violent floods, and are never found at that time with 

 meat in their flomachs. This bears fuch an analogy 

 with the cluttering of biindworms in their quief- 

 cent (late, that we cannot but confider it as a fur<- 

 ther proof of a partial agreement in the nature of 

 the two genera. 



The ancients adopted a moft wild opinion about Gekbra* 

 the generation of thefe fifli, believing them to be 

 either created from the mud, or that the fcrapings 



* Gefncr pifc. 45. 



f Morton's Hijl, Northampt. 419. Pliny obferves r that the 

 eels of the lake Benacus coiled: together in the fame manner in 

 the month of Odober, poffibly to retreat from the winter's 

 eold, Lib, ix* c. zz, 



Of 



TION* 



