228 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
powerfully pleads for the protection and transplantation of the 
elvers wherever they are likely to prosper. 
Eels are extremely susceptible of cold; none whatever are 
found in the Arctic regions, and at the approach of winter they 
bury themselves in the mud, where they remain in a state of 
torpidity until the genial warmth of spring recalls them to a 
more active state of existence. In this condition they are fre- 
quently taken by eel-spears, and in Somersetshire the people 
know how to find the holes in the banks of rivers in which eels 
are laid up, by the hoar-frost not lying over them as it does 
elsewhere, and dig them out in heaps. Though generally only 
from two to three feet long, eels sometimes acquire a much 
larger size. Specimens six feet long and fifteen pounds in weight 
are occasionally captured, and Yarrell saw at Cambridge the 
preserved skins of two which weighed together fifty pounds. 
They were taken on draining a fen-dyke at Wisbeach. As eels 
are but slow in growth, these sizes speak for a great longevity. 
The Conger is in its general appearance so nearly allied 
to the common eel that it might 
easily be mistaken for the same 
species. It, however, materially dif- 
fers from it by its darker colour in 
the upper part, and its brighter hue 
beneath, by its dorsal fin beginning 
near the head, and by its snout generally projecting beyond 
the lower jaw. 
This marine giant of the eel tribe attains a length of ten feet, 
and a weight of 130 pounds, and is well known on all the rocky 
parts of the coast of the British Islands, though nowhere more 
abundant than on the Cornish coast, where, according to Mr. 
Couch, it is not uncommon for a boat with three men to bring 
on shore from five hundredweight to two tons. The fishing 
for congers is always performed at night, and not unattended 
with danger, as it is quite a common occurrence for a conger to 
attack the fishermen with open jaws, and so great is the strength 
of the large specimens that they have occasionally succeeded in 
pulling the fisherman quite out of his boat, if by any chance 
he has fastened the line to his arm. The congers that keep 
among rocks hide themselves in crevices, where they are not 
unfrequently left by the retiring tide; but in situations free 
Conger Kel. 
