THE HERON AND THE EEL. 227 
yalue a thousand fold. On the Continent many lakes and ponds 
have been stocked with elvers, packed in wet grass, and sent by 
the railroads or the post far into the interior of the country. 
Eels are pre-eminently nocturnal animals. They always con- 
gregate at the darkest parts of the stews in which they are 
kept, and invariably select the darkest nights for their autumnal 
migration to the sea. Owing to the smallness of their gill 
aperture, the membranous folds of which, by closing the orifice 
when the eel is out of the water, prevents the desiccation of the 
branchie, they have the power of living a long time out of the 
water when the air is humid, and not unfrequently travel 
during the night over the moist surface of meadows or gardens 
in quest of frogs or other suitable food. 
That eels are not devoid of sagacity is proved by mary well 
authenticated anecdotes. “In Otaheite,” says Ellis in his * Poly- 
nesian Researches,” “ they are fed till they attain an enormous 
size. These pets are kept in large holes two or three feet deep, 
partially filled with water. On the sides of these pits they 
generally remain, excepting when called by the person who 
feeds them. I have been several times with the young chief 
when he has sat down by the side of the hole, and by giving a 
shrill sort of whistle has brought out an enormous eel, which 
has moved about the surface of the water and eaten with confi- 
dence out of his master’s hand.” 
The eel has many enemies, among others the common heron, 
who, in spite of the slippery skin of his victim, knows how to 
drive his denticulated middle claw into his body, or to strike 
him with his pointed bill. Yarrell relates that a heron had 
once struck his sharp beak through the head of an eel, piercing 
both eyes, and that the eel—no doubt remembering that one 
good turn deserves another—had coiled itself so tightly round 
the neck of the heron as to stop the bird’s respiration: both 
were dead. 
The London market is principally supplied with eels from 
Holland, a country where they abound. According to Mr. 
Mayhew, about ten millions of eels, amounting to a weight of 
1,500,000 lbs., are annually sold in Billingsgate market. These 
figures show us at once that the multiplication of eels in our 
sluggish rivers, which only contain such fish as are compara- 
tively speaking worthless, is a matter worth consideration, and 
