256 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PAItT I. 



drops, which are condensed by the sun's heal, in those 

 countries ; so Eels are bred of a particular dew, falling 

 in the months of May, or June on the banks of some 

 particular ponds or ri % rs, aptt-d by nature for that end, 

 which : n ;i f w Jlays are by the sun's heat turned into 

 Eels : And some of the ancients have called the Eels that 

 are thus bred, the offspring of Jove. I have seen, in the 

 beginning of July, in a river not far from Canterbury, 

 some parts of it covered over with young Eels, about the 

 thickness of a straw ; and these Eels did lie, on the top 

 of that water, as thick as motes are said to be in the 

 sun: And I have heard the like of other rivers, as namely, 

 in the Severn, where they are called yelvers ; and in a 

 pond, or mere, near unto Staffordshire, where, about a 

 set time in summer, such small Eels abound so much, 

 that many of the poorer sort of people that inhabit near 

 to it, take such Eels out of this mere with sieves or 

 sheets; and make a kind of Eel-cake of them, and eat 

 it like as bread. And Gesner quotes venerable Bede*, 

 to say ; that in England there is an island called Ely^ 

 by reason of the innumerable number of Eels that breed 

 in it. But that Eels may be bred as some worms, 

 and some kind of bees and wasps are 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 Lobelt; and, also, by 



* The most universal scholar of his time : he was born at Durham 

 about G71, and bred under St, John .of Bever'ey. It is said, that Pope 

 Sergius the First invited him to Rome ; though others say, he never 

 stirred out of his cell. He was a man ol great virtue, and remarkable 

 for a most sweet and engaging disposition : he died in 734, and lies buried 

 at Durham. His works make eigiu volumes in folio. See his Life in the 

 Eiofrr* Brit arm. 



f Matthias de Lobcl, or L'Obel; an eminent physician and botanist, of 

 the sixteenth century ; was a native of Lisle in Flanders. He was a dis- 

 ciple of Rondeletius: and, being invited to London by king James the First, 

 published there, his Historia Plantarum; and died in the year 1616. Vide 

 Hoffmanni " Lexicon Universal* ." in articulo " Matthias Lobelius." This 

 work is entitled Plantarum seu stirplum historia, and was first published at 

 Antwerp in 1576, and republished at London in 1605. He was author 

 likewise of two other works; jhe former of which has for its tit 



