348 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



pellier, in France, rank high in the size of their eels, and the Seine 

 swarms with them at certain parts. In the Elbe they occur of very 

 large size, and in the Ganges they attain a much more considerable 

 length and weight. Altogether, it may be safely said that no fish 

 has enjoyed so wide a celebrity or has retained it so long as the eel. 



The growth of eels is said by some writers to be very slow. Yarrell 

 says they do not exceed twelve inches during the first year, and 

 characterises this as "slow." I cannot agree that it is tardy in 

 comparison with other fishes. Lacepede opined that its growth was 

 very gradual, and that many years elapsed before eels were of the 

 size at which they are usually found, but he also believed that their limit 

 of age was not less than a hundred years. In aid of this opinion he 

 mentions the case of a friend who put sixty of these fish in a tank. 

 They were of very small size. After nine years they had only increased 

 from nineteen centimetres to twenty-six. This sort of experience has 

 been contradicted by the experiments of Mr. Coote (the father of pisci- 

 culture), who placed young eels in a reservoir with a sufficient supply of 

 food, and in four or five years they attained the weight of from four to 

 five pounds. Daniel gives an instance of an eel which lived thirty-one 

 years in a well, but I cannot endorse his supposition that eels grow so 

 rapidly as he describes in Lough Neagh. He says that in this lake they 

 have grown from the size of pack-thread to that of a man's leg in from 

 three to four months. Couch says that his observation leads him to 

 believe that the very young ones that have gone upwards in the spring, 

 at their return in the autumn are larger than a swan-quill, and in some 

 cases even as large as the little finger of a child. My own belief is that 

 an eel of the ordinary "eel fare" dimensions grows, with a plenitude 

 of food, to the length of eight or nine inches in a full year. I have 

 proved this in an aquarium. 



The size to which fresh-water eels ultimately attain is in some cases 

 enormous. The average size is, perhaps, not more than 2|lb., if so much ; 

 but instances are on record where the size has almost provoked one to 

 believe that the conger has been mistaken for the fresh-water eel. Mr. 

 Buckland recently exhibited the cast of a fine eel from the Mole of lllb. ; 

 this was of the sharp-nosed species, and a magnificent fish it was, and 

 he gives a most interesting account, in his " Familiar History of British 

 Fishes," of the eels that have come under his notice. He says that in 

 November, 1867, an eel of immense size was shown at Mr. Culham's, 

 fishmonger, of Downham Market, Norfolk, which was taken out of the 

 river Ouse, near Denver Sluice. It measured in length 5ft. 8in., its 

 girth was 17iin., and it weighed 361b. (281b. after being cleaned). Its 

 subsequent history is as follows: The eel was sold and taken to Ely, 



