45 
off against rocks or other hard substances, developed into the 
young fish. While Hretmonr gave the following recipe for 
their propagation :—Cut up two turfs covered with May dew, 
lay one against the other, with their grassy sides turned 
inwards, subsequently expose them to the heat of the sun, and, 
after a few hours, the observer ought to find an infinity of Eels. 
Horsehair, taken from the tail of a stallion, has been looked 
upon as a never-failing source from which Elvers (as young 
Eels are termed) could be procured. While parasitic worms, 
as Ascaris, have been repeatedly exhibited, after they have been 
removed from the intestines of these fish, as the developing 
young. It has also been asserted that Hels may be produced 
from some fish belonging to a totally distinct family of the 
finny tribes; and Dr Eversarp, of Rostock, having found some 
elongated tiny young inside the viviparous blenny, imagined 
that he at last had solved the enigma, and discovered immature 
Eels; in fact, at Commachio this slimy blenny goes by a name 
which, being interpreted, means “el’s mother,” as it is also 
termed in many parts of Germany. Still more common was an 
old opinion, and which idea is said to be still prevalent in some 
localities, that the Eel inter-breeds with the water-snake, while 
in Sardinia a notion exists that a beetle, Dytiscus roeselii, is the 
procreator of the Hels. Along our own coasts fishermen may 
be found who believe that after the Eels have once bred they 
change into congers; for, as they ask, who ever saw an adult 
Eel re-ascending rivers from the ocean? While in some parts 
of Ireland the superstition still appears to hold good that they 
are the descendants of the serpents on which St. Parrick 
served a writ of ejectment, depriving them of any local habita- 
tion on dry land. Even in Cambridgeshire a tradition exists 
that when the clergy refused to accede to the Pope’s order to 
put away their wives, the latter, as well as their offspring, 
were turned into Eels, whence originated the name of the 
town of Ely! 
In the seventeenth century both Repr and Pavxint 
expressed their opinions that hard and soft roes must exist in 
these fishes, although they had been unable to discover such. 
