216 



eel's pectoral fins, so that the greater weight of the parts 

 behind them may not allow of receding, whereby the 

 head might else be drawn back through the snare, unless 

 it were drawn extremely tight ; for the eel's skin is pecu- 

 liarly slippery, it being coated with a kind of slime. The 

 skins of eels make a very fine glue. 



Eels cannot endure severe cold, which accounts for 

 their immersing themselves in the mud, and for their 

 taking advantage of the winter floods, to escape from 

 such places as do not arlbrd them shelter in frosty wea- 

 ther. When kept in ponds, they usually remain torpid 

 during the winter ; but if a number of straw trusses be 

 bound tight at their several ends, and be thrown into the 

 pond before the eels have plunged into the mud, they 

 will get into the trusses for warmth, and may thus fre- 

 quently be taken : if the ends were left open, the eels 

 would easily escape. 



Of the Chub, Chcvln, or Nob. 



We now enter on the familiar tribe, though I really 

 have my doubts whether this fish does not, in some mea- 

 sure, appertain to the predatory. Jam sensible that the 

 chub is considered as subsisting on worms, weeds, flies, &:c. 

 and is supposed not to prey on small fishes j but having 

 caught one while trolling with a m'mnow, and having 

 observed chubs at times very busy among small fry, there 

 appears some reason for concluding that, when pressed 

 by hunger, they are not over scrupulous in that particular. 

 The general habits of -the chub are assuredly innocent, 

 and its not having teeth in, its jaws, evinces that Nature 

 Intended it to be so. 



The chul is extremely well formed, and is altogether 



very 



