292 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



educated modern specialist. Thus, ages ago, in the remotest 

 past to which we can trace language, Aryan man had asso- 

 ciated the sound agh or angh with the idea of choking. The 

 property of snakes which impressed him most was neither 

 their poisonous fangs nor their prostrate attitude, but the 

 power of the larger snakes to squeeze. Hence he came to 

 speak of a snake as aghi y nasalised anghi^ the choker, just 

 as men of science have designated the largest known snake 

 as Boa constrictor the choker far excellence. Then small snakes 

 required a diminutive term, which took the form of aghla^ 

 or anghla^ appearing in Latin as angutlla, an eel, diminutive 

 of anguis, a snake, and in Greek as e^t?, a snake, ey^eXus, an 

 eel. Whether the root word found its way into Germanic 

 speech through Latin, or independently, is not very clear, 

 but at all events there it is, in Anglo-Saxon, German, 

 Icelandic, and so on. The eel is ineradicably the little 

 snake ; and just as men of every race entertain an instinctive 

 horror for snakes, so there remain traces of the same feeling 

 about eels. It is true that most civilised races have overcome 

 this long ago, and eels are so well thought of as food in this 

 country that we import very large supplies from Holland. 

 Yet, although there is no more intelligent and practical 

 peasantry in the world than the Scots, there exists among them 

 a strong and universal prejudice against eels. The waters of 

 Scotland abound in eels, but you will find never a Scot who 

 does not treat with shuddering or contempt the idea of eating 

 one. I myself, though I have eaten eels (without much relish), 

 must confess to a feeling of dislike to the creature. Its 

 stealthy, gliding motion in the water, its powerful contortions 

 in the hand and its extraordinary tenacity of life, are associated 

 with the idea of something " uncanny " and malign. However, 

 this is all nonsense, of course ; the eel is excellent, nutritious 

 food, whereof the supply is in no danger of running short in 

 the British Isles. On the contrary, the resources of our waters 

 in the matter of eels is well-nigh inexhaustible, and it is to be 



