THE COMPLETE ANGLFR. 



CHAPTER XIII, 



Observations of the EEL, and other Fish that want 

 Scales ; and how to fish for them. 



PlSCATOR. 



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. 

 JSut most men differ, 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 pu- 

 trefaction 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 at 

 certain of their breeding as if they had seen 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 their fins. And Ron- 

 deletius says, he has seen Eels cling together like dew- 

 worms. 



And others say, that Eels, growing old, breed other 

 Eels out of the corruption of their own age; which, 

 Sir Francis Bacon says, exceeds not ten years. And 

 others say, that as pearls are made of glutinous dew- 



* That fishes are furnished with parts fit for generation cannot be 

 doubted, since it is a common practice to castrate them. See the method 

 O f doing it in Pbilos. Trans, Vol. XLVIII, Part II. for the year 1754. 

 page 870. 



