THE EEL. 73 



country for the angler they are taken, it is said, of the 

 weight of twenty pounds. In Albania, they are stated 

 to be occasionally as thick as a man's thigh. And some 

 writers have affirmed that in Prussia, they have been 

 sometimes caught ten or twelve feet in length. We our- 

 selves, have often seen them of five or six pounds in 

 weight ; and fish of this size are by no means uncommon 

 in the waters of the Pas-de-Calais, and other departments 

 of France. 



The eel is a fish of very slow growth ; but, as a set-off 

 against this, he seems to be endowed with the gift of very 

 long life. Writers on fishing generally limit him to a 

 period of five or six years; but a French author who 

 speaks with the greatest confidence on the subject, says, 

 " Experience has proved that the eel will live for a cen- 

 tury. How, otherwise, can the prodigious increase of 

 these animals be explained ; since it can be demonstrated 

 that the females do not breed before they are twelve 

 years old. The eel increases until his ninety-fourth year. 

 Each female therefore can produce during a period of 

 eighty-two years; and this satisfactorily accounts for the 

 enormous quantity of eels to be found in the waters 

 which are adapted for them." 



Our author gives no authority for these positive state- 

 ments ; but one thing is now pretty certain ; this fish must 

 be longer lived than Walton (following Bacon) and others 

 have supposed him to be. Ten years of life, the limit 

 assigned by these authors, with his very slow growth, will 

 not suffice to account for his extraordinary increase. In 

 all probability, the French writer, if not minutely correct, 

 is still not very far from the truth. 



The eel is exceedingly voracious, and a most indis- 

 criminate feeder. Nothing can be too delicate, and few 



