The Fourth Day 157 



And others say, that Eels, growing old, breed 

 other Eels out of the corruption of their own age ; 

 which, Sir Francis Bacon says, exceeds not ten 

 years. And others say, that as pearls are made of 

 glutinous dewdrops, which are condensed by the 

 sun's heat in those countries, so Eels are bred of a 

 particular dew, falling in the months of May or 

 June on the banks of some particular ponds or 

 rivers, apted by nature for that end ; which in a few 

 days are, by the sun's heat, turned into Eels : and 

 some of the Ancients have called the Eels that are 

 thus bred, the offspring of Jove. I have seen, in 

 the beginning of July, in a river not far from Canter- 

 bury, some parts of it covered over with young Eels, 

 about the thickness of a straw ; and these Eels did 

 lie on the top of that water, as thick as motes are 

 said to be in the sun : and I have heard the like of 

 other rivers, as namely, in Severn, where they are 

 called Yelvers ; and in a pond, or mere near unto 

 Staffordshire, where, about a set time in summer, 

 such small Eels abound so much, that many of the 

 poorer sort of people that inhabit near to it, take 

 such Eels out of this mere with sieves or sheets ; 

 and make a kind of Eel-cake of them, and eat it 

 like as bread. And Gesner quotes Venerable Bede, 

 to say, that in England there is an island called Ely, 

 by reason of the innumerable number of Eels that 

 breed in it. But that Eels may be bred as some 

 worms, and some kind of bees and wasps are, either 

 of dew, or out of the corruption of the earth, seems 

 to be made probable by the barnacles and young 

 goslings bred by the sun's heat and the rotten planks 

 of an old ship, and hatched of trees ; both which are 

 related for truths by Du Bartas and Lobel, and also 

 by our learned Camden, and laborious Gerhard in 

 his Herbal. 



It is said by Rondeletius, that those Eels that are 



