THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 175 



are bred in Egypt, by the sun's heat, when it shines upon the 

 overflowing of the river Nilus ; or out of the putrefaction of the 

 earth, and divers other ways. Those tliat 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 tliey are answered, that they may 

 be as certain of their breeding as if they had seen them 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 dis- 

 cerned by reason of their fatness ; but that discerned they may 

 be, and that the he and she-eel may be distinguished by their 

 fins. And Rondeletius 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-drops, which are condensed by the sun's heat 

 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 rivers, adapted by nature for that end, which in a few 

 days 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 1 

 have heard the like of other rivers, as namely in Severn, where 

 they are called yelvers ; and in a pond or mere near Stafford- 

 shire, 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 



are greater numbers of eels taken than at Fulton, on the Oswego river, 

 where there is a considerable fall and many saw-mills. A rude crib is 

 made of pine slats, through which the whole water that drives the mill is 

 turned at night. As that river drains many lakes of middle New York, 

 the eels pass down it on their migration to the sea in vast multitudes, and 

 run into the cribs, which detain them until the morning, when not unfre- 

 quently barrels full are taken out. They are then salted down, and highly 

 prized as food by the country round. — Am. Ed. 



