214 THE SWAN AND HER CREW. 



While upon the subject of plaster casts, I must mention an 

 occupation which the boys resorted to in the winter-time. 

 Their collection of birds' eggs was almost as perfect as they 

 could hope to make it for many years to come, but at Frank's 

 suggestion they added to it, for additional perfection, a repre- 

 sentation of the egg of every British bird. They made these 

 eggs of plaster and coloured them very carefully, and varnished 

 them with white of egg. These artificial eggs could not have 

 been distinguished from real ones as they lay in the cabinet, 

 but each egg was marked with a label, signifying that it was 

 only a model. I recommend this plan to all students of 

 ornithology. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



Eel-fishing. Setting the Nets. Elvers. The Merivale Float. 



ONE autumn day, when the ground was red with fallen leaves 

 and the landscape was sodden with wet, the boys were busy in 

 the boat-house with some of their numerous occupations, when 

 the conversation turned upon eels and eel-fishing, how that 

 eels bred in the sea, and in the spring myriads of tiny eels 

 came up the rivers; when the river was wide, ascending it in two 

 columns, one by each bank, so thick together that you might 

 scoop them out in bucketfuls, and how, when they met 

 with any obstruction, such as a weir or flood-gate, they will 

 wriggle themselves over it ; and it often happens that where 

 it is dry they stick fast to it, and their companions make 

 their way over them, and leave them to perish. In 

 the autumn, too, the eels migrate to the sea in vast numbers, 

 and are caught by means of nets placed across the river. 

 Jimmy said, 



" I say, Frank, do you remember all those eel-nets we saw by 

 Horning? They will be in full work now. I vote we sail down 

 next Friday night and see them in operation." 



