CHAPTER XIII. 



OBSERVATIONS OF THE EEL. AND OTHER FISH THAT 

 WANT SCALES, AND HOW TO FISH FOR THEM. 



It is agreed by most men that the 

 eel is a most dainty fish ; the Romans have 

 esteemed her the Helena of their feasts, and some 

 the queen of palate-pleasure. But most men dif- 

 fer about their breeding : some say they breed by 

 generation, as other fish do ; and others that they 

 breed, as some worms do, of mud, as rats and 

 mice and many other living creatures are bred in 

 Egypt, by the sun's heat when it shines upon the 

 overflowing of the river Nilus, or out of the putre- 

 faction of the earth, and divers other ways. Those 

 that deny them to breed by generation, as other fish 

 do, ask if any man ever saw an eel to have a spawn or 

 melt. And they are answered that they may be as 

 certain of their breeding as if they had seen them 

 spawn ; for they say that they are certain that eels 

 have all parts fit for generation, like other fish, but 

 so small as not to be easily discerned, by reason of 

 their fatness, but that discerned they may be, and 

 that the he and the she eel may be distinguished by 



