THE EEL. 351 



as if to be swallowed." This appears to have been again and again 

 repeated until all movement ceased. 



Of course Badham has something quaint to say in reference to this 

 tenacity of life and purpose in the eel. This is what he does say : 

 "Glover quotes an Englishman who told him he had seen an eel come 

 nine times alive out of the trail of a raven, absolutely refusing to be 

 digested, thus proving his claim to just as many lives as a cat, for a tenth 

 trial terminated fatally. Postico falUt cUentum. When pinched by a 

 sturgeon, he has been seen to retreat backwards in the same way, and a 

 German tailor, who swallowed one accidentally, was glad enough to get 

 rid of it on similar terms. He does not appear to have cared to 

 repeat the experiment, though Gesner suggests that small eels might 

 possibly be turned to account by doctors in this way, and save their 

 patients many a nauseous draught." "We are not aware," adds 

 the learned doctor, "that this extraordinary hint has ever been acted 

 upon." 



Mr. Stewart, in his " Practical Angler," gives what to me is an evidence 

 of intelligence on the part of the eel which is too striking to be passed 

 over. He says that an eel has been seen to dart suddenly against a trout, 

 striking it so forcibly in the eye by the protruding lower jaw that the 

 trout was stunned and floated insensible down the stream. If it did this 

 knowing, as has been suggested, that it could not eat the fish alive, 

 but could do so when dead, I can only say the eel displayed an amount of 

 forethought which does it much credit, almost as much, indeed, as it does 

 in the following curious allegory, from the before quoted Dialogus Creatu- 

 ram MorcCizatus, " Of the Dolphyn and the Ele : " " Ther was a sertayne 

 dolphyn in the see that founde an ele amonge the nodes, and stoppid 

 her passage and pursewed aftyr her. And whan he had takyn her of- 

 tyntymes he coude not keep her. She was so slyppere that euyr she 

 escapid. Wherof the dolphyn was greatly soyre. The ele wyllynge to 

 mocke the dolphyn and to escape from him, she spake sotefly to hymn 

 and sayde, thou merreylous dolphyn I sorow hugely for the. For thy 

 laboure is great to swym thus aftyr me, and thy harte is not mery. But 

 thou labourist in vayne, for thou shalt never take me, in the depnesse of 

 the watyr. But goo with me into the middle, and into the drye grounde, 

 and thou shalt have me at thy wyll. This dolphyn was folysh and had 

 loste his wytte for angyr and gulosite, and swam aftyr the ele a grete 

 pace intindinge to destroye her. The ele brought the dolphyn into 

 shalowe watyre and sprange in to y e mydde, and sayde to the dolphyn, 

 Come to me for the rotye of the erbe that lit my passage, and thou mayste 

 satisfye thyn apetite of me. The dolphyn made a grete lepe to catche 

 the ele. But she lurkyd under the mudde, and the dolphyn stak fast in 



