Chap. 39.] nsHES. 409 



CHAP. 38. (21.)— EELS. 



Eels live eight^^ years ; they arc able to survive out of water 

 as much as six days,*^' when a uorth-east wind blows ; but when 

 the south wind prevails, not so many. In winter/^ they can- 

 'not live if they are in very shallow water, nor yet if the water 

 is troubled. Hence it is that they are taken more especially 

 about the rising of the Yergiliae,'^^ when the rivers are mostly 

 in a turbid state. These animals seek their food at night ; 

 they are the only fish the bodies of which, when dead, do not 

 float '^ upon the surface. 



(22.) There is a lake called Benacus,'^^ in the territory of 

 Verona, in Italy, through which the river Mincius flows. ^"- At 

 the part of it whence this river issues, once a year, and mostly 

 in the month of October, the lake is troubled, evidently by the 

 constellations"^ of autumn, and the eels are heaped together'* 

 by the waves, and rolled on by them in such astonishing mul- 

 titudes, that single masses of them, containing more than a 

 thousand in number, are often taken in the chambers'^ which 

 are formed in the bed of the river for that pui-pose. 



CSAP. 39. (23.) — THE MTJE^NA. 



The muraena brings forth every month, while all the other 



adhere to the head of the polypus, and which it uses equally for the pur- 

 pose of swimming or crawling. 



^^ Spallanzani, in his '' Nat. Hist, of the Eel in the Lagunes of Comac- 

 chio," says, that immediately after their birth they retreat to the Lagunes, 

 and at the end of five years re-enter the river Po. 



6^ Eighty or a hundred hours at most, Spallanzani says. 



^8 Cold, or a foul state of the water, Cuvier says, is very destructive to 

 the eel. 



69 Or Pleiades, See c. 20. 



"^^ Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 75, says the same, and likewise that 

 they feed mostly/ at night. The reason for their not floating when dead, he 

 says, is their peculiar conformation ; the belly being so remarkably small 

 that the water cannot find an entrance ; added to which they have no fat 

 upon them. 



" See B. iii. c. 23. "- See B. iii. c. 20. 



■^3 The setting of the Pleiades or the rising of Arcturus. See B. ii. c. 47. 



■^■^ Spallanzani informs us that the fishermen of the Lagunes of 

 Comacchio form with reeds small chambers, by means of which they take 

 the eels when endeavouring to re-enter the river Po ; in these such vast 

 multitudes are collected, that they are absolutely to be seen above the 

 surface of the water. 



^^ Excipulis. 



