CHAPTER XIII 



OBSERVATIONS OF THE EEL, AND OTHER FISH THAT WANT 

 SCALES J AND HOW TO FISH FOR THEM 



[jfourtb 2>al 



Pise. It is agreed by most men, that the Eel is a most 

 dainty fish ; the Romans have esteemed her the Helena 

 of their feasts, and some the queen of palate-pleasure. 

 But most men differ about their breeding : some say 

 they breed by generation as other fish do, and others, that 

 they breed, as some worms do, of mud ; as rats and 

 mice, and many other living creatures are bred in Egypt, 

 by the sun's heat, when it shines upon the overflowing of 

 the River Nilus : or out of the putrefaction of the earth, 

 and divers other ways. Those that deny them to breed 

 by generation as other fish do, ask, if any man ever saw 

 an eel to have a spawn or melt ? and they are answered, 

 that they may be as certain of their breeding as if they 

 had seen spawn : for they say, that they are certain _that 

 eels have all parts fit for generation, like other fish,* 



* That fishes are furnished with parts fit for generation cannot be 

 doubted, since it is a common practice to castrate them. See the 

 method of doing it in Philos. Trans, vol. xlviii. part ii., for the year 

 1754, page 870. H. 



[ I am surprised at the anatomical ignorance of Sir J. Hawkins, and 

 at that of the writer in the Philosophical Transactions. No river- 

 fish have external organs of generation, and cannot therefore be 

 castrated. Eels have ova and milt like other fresh-water fish, but 

 in minute portions. They are migratory in rivers running into the 

 sea. They migrate to deposit their spawn in salt water, and immi- 

 grate to fresh water to grow in it. The salmon migrates to sea 

 for a different purpose to grow and fatten in salt water ; and 

 immigrates to fresh to procreate its species in the shallows. I am 

 of opinion that eels are oviparous, and I know, of my own know- 



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