2l8 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



either of dew, or out of the corruption of the earth, 

 seems to be made probable by the barnacles and 

 young goslings bred by the sun's heat and the rotten 

 planks of an old ship, and hatched of trees ; both 

 which are related for truths by Du Bartas and Lo- 

 bel, and also by our learned Camden and labori- 

 ous Gerard in his Herbal. 



It is said by Rondeletius, that those eels that are 

 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, be- 

 cause I am certain that powdered beef is a most ex- 

 cellent 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," men- 

 tions a lamprey belonging to the Roman emperor 

 to be made tame, and so kept for almost three- 

 score 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 Dr. Hakewill, that Hor- 

 tensius was seen to weep at the death of a lam- 

 prey that he had kept long and loved exceedingly. 



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 and 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 any- 



