CHAPTER XVII. 

 EELS. 



"The imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish 

 Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish." 



SHAKESPEARE. 



THESE fellows are not much in my line. I confess I hate the sight of 

 them ; for if ever you see eels lounging about the bottom of a river in 

 England, like so many coastguardsmen expecting foul weather, you 

 may be sure the trout will not rise. How could they be expected to 

 in such low company ! And if you have the bad luck to hook one, he 

 just behaves like an excited corkscrew, till he has got your line into so 

 many knots and kinks, that it will take you a month of Sundays to 

 unravel it. And then as to unhooking him. Oh ! don't talk of it. 



But some think them good eating, and like to catch them, so we 

 will give them a page or so, grudgingly. 



Of spined and unspined eels you will find, in Dr. Day's work, 

 47 species, under the families, Rhyncobdellidce, Symbranchida, and 

 Muranida : but many are small, and the last-named are almost all 

 marine, and of the others many are tidal. The only ones worthy of 

 the angler's notice seem to be my old friend Mastacemblus armatus, 

 which runs, to my knowledge, to about 2 feet in length, and Anguilla 

 Bengalensis, which Dr. Day says runs to 4 feet in length, and has been 

 introduced into the Neilgherries. This is probably the fish of which 

 Colonel Parsons caught, by his live bait method, one weighing iSlbs. 



Their flavour is much esteemed by some Europeans, and the natives 

 in your camp are always very glad to get them. It is as well, therefore, 

 to know how to catch them ; and as they are easily caught, your servants 

 can be allowed to do this much for themselves, if you will be at the 

 trouble to provide them with the simple tackle necessary, and the bait, 

 which in any case you would have to throw away at the end of the day 



