298 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



enormous. If the pike should be hunted down as a common 

 pirate, the eel deserves to be dealt with as a midnight 

 assassin. The pike, at all events, is not known to devour 

 the spawn of other fish, but eels work sad havoc on the 

 " redds " of salmon and trout. The pike, also, may be taken 

 with rod and line after showing fair sport, but nobody cares 

 to angle for eels save for the pot. " The Ele," quoth Dame 

 Juliana Berners, " is a quaysy Fysshe. A ravenour and de- 

 vourer of the brode of Fysshe, and the Pike also is a devourer 

 of Fysshe. I put them bothe behinde al other for to angle." 

 The mess which an eel will make with tackle intended for 

 other fish is indescribable. Once, and once only, did I catch 

 an eel when fly-fishing for trout. It was where a burn ran 

 shallow over a shingly beach into the sea, a part of the 

 current where I had learned to look for common trout grown 

 uncommonly fat on tidal fare. My gut cast was of the finest ; 

 a Chinese puzzle was a joke to it after the eel, an insignificant 

 creature about nine inches long, had dealt with it for the space 

 of five or ten seconds. The fly was a small red spinner when 

 it started. 



Luckily for anglers, the common eel does not attain the 

 huge size which some of the family reach the conger, for 

 instance. An eel of 3 Ib. is a large one, but they are taken 

 sometimes considerably heavier than that. Frank Buckland 

 gave the dimensions of the largest eel he ever examined and 

 cast. It was taken in the river Mole, measured 4 feet 4 inches 

 in length, 10 inches in girth, and weighed just under 10 Ib. 



The Grig, Glut, or BroacUnosed Eel (Anguilla latirostis) 



FINS. 



As in the common eel, save that 

 the distance between the com- 

 mencement of the dorsal and 

 anal fins is shorter than the head. 



TEETH. 



Those of the lower jaw are in a 

 single band, without longitudinal 

 groove. Otherwise, as in the 

 common eel. 



There has been considerable difference of opinion among 



