188 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [part i. 



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 glutin- 

 ous dew-drops, which are condensed by the sun's 

 heat in those countries, so Eels are bred of a par- 

 ticular 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 be- 

 ginning of July, in a river not far from Canterbury, 

 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 



