EEL. 



breed as often and are as prolific as those which have 

 free access to the estuaries, and can pursue their 

 autumnal journeys without much difficulty ; but as it 

 is difficult to reach eels in those deep waters, the 

 point is one which cannot be settled without the 

 most careful observation. 



The annual descent of the river by eels, at nearly 

 the same season when salmon and other fishes which 

 spawn inland are ascending, has been ascertained in 



891 



very many parts of the country ; and we believe it 

 is most remarkable in rivers which pass through no 

 lakes of very considerable magnitude, or in those 

 which flow by short courses from lakes to the sea. 

 The river Ban, in Ireland, which flows from Lough- 

 Nea^h to the North Sea, has been long famed for its 

 eel fisheries. Many years ago the fishery of this 

 river is represented as having- let for one thousand 

 pounds a-year ; eels of the weight of nine or ten 

 pounds being sometimes taken, and the time of find- 

 ing them in the river, at least in numbers, was during 

 the autumnal rains, while they were descending , and 

 we believe that, long before the subject was thought 

 of by professed naturalists, the fishermen on the Ban 

 were in the habit of considering, as a matter of course, 

 that the eels descended to the sea in order to spawn, 

 in the same manner as salmon and trout ascended the 

 river for the same purpose. Nor was this all that was 

 known of the true history of the fish by those fisher- 

 men, for they were in the habit of suspending ropes 

 of straw across the falls and rapids, in order to assist 

 the young eels in their ascent during that part of the 

 summer when th'-s movement takes place. 



On smaller rivers, the greater part of the water 

 of which, except during floods, is taken to the mill 

 courses, the millers have long known how to carry on 

 a verv successful eel fishing with very little trouble 

 during the autumnal ascent. There is one stream in 

 Forfarshire where we have seen this fishing carried on 

 to a verv great extent. This stream is the Vinncy, 

 which flows eastward and enters the British sea in 

 the bay of Lunan, between Arbroath and Montrose. 

 The principal stream originates in, or passes through, 

 a number of small lakes, containing great quantities 

 of peat, and marl, and apparently particularly favo- 

 rable for the pasture of eels, which are found in vast 

 numbers both in those lakes and in the pools of the 

 rivulets which discharge their waters into them. 

 Marvellous stories are often told of the size and formi- 

 dable character of eels which are obtained in those 

 small lakes, when partially drained, in order to obtain 

 the marl by digging, and not by drudging ; and we 

 have often heard of eels ten or twelve feet long, as 

 thick as the calf of a man's leg, and capable of leaving 

 the impression of their bite in a steel spade. Of 

 course these are exaggerations, but they serve to 

 show the district alluded to is not only a great eel 

 country, but a country of great eels. Well, in autumn, 

 especially when it is moonlight, for the eels are 

 understood to like to see their way, though night 

 wanderers, the millers open the sluice of the mill 

 pond, or rather it does not require to be shut during 

 the autumnal rains, and place a large basket to receive 

 all the water of the " off-shot," the whole being 

 stopped and turned into that, at the point where it 

 would descend on the wheel. In the morning it is 

 no uncommon thing to find a hundred weight of eels, 

 or even more, in one of these baskets ; and, we 

 believe, that it is either a point of justice or of honour 

 among the millers, that they shall all take their turn 



during the migration, so that he who lives farthest up 

 the water-way may not enjoy a monopoly to the 

 injury of the rest. 



The accounts which have been long known of other 

 places are nearly the same. In Scotland, in the 

 neighbourhood of Linlitbgow, is a considerable lake, in 

 which great quantities ofeels are caught by hooks and 

 lines during any of the summer months ; but the prin- 

 cipal fishing is in the month of October, when it is found 



that the eels, directed by natural instinct, discover an 

 irresistible propensity to issue from the loch by the pas- 

 sage through which the water flows from it to the sea. 

 In October, the person who rents the fisheries puts 

 into that passage a kind of chest, so formed as to 

 allow free passage to^the water, while it stops those 

 eels that exceed a certain size. This chest is every 

 morning emptied of its fish, which are sometimes in 

 such abundance as to require carts to carry them 

 away. This fishing continues about a month," before 

 or after which time few or none can be so taUen : the 

 chest is then removed, and the passage left free. 



In Wiltshire, about Warminster, where the rivers 

 are smaller and more rapid in their course than in 

 many other parts of England, the mills placed on the 

 streams are numerous, and the water is carefully 

 directed into one channel. The persons possessing 

 these mills having discovered that numbers of eels 

 go down the river during every flood happening in 

 October, have devised a box which they call an eel- 

 grate ; this is placed in a convenient part of the river, 

 and thus great quantities of eels are caught. They 

 also find, that no eels worth mentioning can be taken 

 in this way at any other season of the year. 



Whether the eels thus caught in descending the 

 river are near the breeding time, was not for a long 

 time ascertained, though the fact is now established 

 that breeding is the grand purpose for which the 

 descent takes place. It has been clearly ascertained 

 by repeated observations, the accuracy of which can- 

 not be questioned, made in very different parts of the 

 country, that eels invariably descend the rivers to the 

 lower estuary, wherever such a purpose is practicable. 

 The fact that they were found in vast numbers in the 

 ooze and sludge, or sand of such places, was well 

 ascertained for many years previous to the time that 

 naturalists began to inquire what brought them there. 

 Sludgy mud, or what is usually termed a fat beach, 

 from which the tide ebbs to a considerable distance, 

 but which is still full of stagnant pools and runs of 

 water, even at the ebb, are the favorite places for 

 them. There they lie during the cold weather, buried 

 under the surface, and matted together in clots ; 

 and there are many places where great numbers are 

 caught during the winter between the prongs of barbed 

 spears, which are pushed along the soft sludge until it 

 is ascertained that they have taken a sufficient load. 

 This is, we believe, very extensively practised in the 

 bay of Southampton, and at the mouths of many of the 

 moderately sized rivers of other parts of the south of 

 England ; but though not unknown in the northern 

 parts of the country, it is carried on less extensively 

 there. The fact is that, in the northern parts of 

 Britain, in Scotland especially, the prejudice of the 

 people runs very strong, not only against the form of 

 the eel, but against the quality of its flesh as an article 

 of food It may be that, in the latter respect, the eels 

 of cold, and especially of moss-tinged waters, are 

 much inferior to those of clear streams, or of those 

 balsamic waters which acquire a golden, or, at all 



