158 The Complete Angler 



bred in rivers that relate to or be nearer to the sea, 

 never return to the fresh waters, as the Salmon does 

 always desire to do, when they have once tasted the 

 salt water ; and I do the more easily believe this, 

 because I am certain that powdered beef is a most 

 excellent bait to catch an Eel. And though Sir 

 Francis Bacon will allow the Eel's life to be but 

 ten years, yet he, in his History of Life and Death, 

 mentions a Lamprey, belonging to the Roman 

 emperor, to be made tame, and so kept for almost 

 threescore years ; and that such useful and pleasant 

 observations were made of this Lamprey, that 

 Crassus the orator, who kept her, lamented her 

 death ; and we read in Doctor Hakewill, that 

 Hortensius was seen to weep at the death of a 

 Lamprey that he had kept long, and loved exceed- 

 ingly. 



It is granted by all, or most men, that Eels, for 

 about six months, that is to say, the six cold months 

 of the year, stir not up or down, neither in the rivers, 

 nor in the pools in which they usually are, but .get 

 into the soft earth or mud ; and there many of -them 

 together bed themselves, and live without feeding 

 upon anything, as I have told you some swallows 

 have been observed to do in hollow trees, for those 

 six cold months. And this the Eel and Swallow 

 do, as not being able to endure winter weather : for 

 Gesner quotes Albertus to say, that in the year 1 125, 

 that year's winter being more cold than usually, 

 Eels did, by nature's instinct, get out of the water I 

 into a stack of hay in a meadow upon dry ground ; 

 and there bedded themselves : but yet, at last, a 

 frost killed them. And our Camden relates, that, 

 in Lancashire, fishes were digged out of the earth 

 with spades, where no water was near to the place. 

 I shall say little more of the Eel, but that, as it is 

 observed he is impatient of cold, so it hath been 



