17G THE COMPLETE AXGLER 



make a kind of eel-cake of them, and eat it like as bread. And 

 Gcsner 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 bar- 

 nacles and young goslings bred by the sun's heat, and the rotten 

 planks of an old ship, and hatched of trees ; both which are re- 

 lated for truths by Du Bartas and Lobel,f and also by our learned 

 Camden, and laborious Gerard:}: in his Herbal. 



It is said by Rondeletius, that those eels that are bred in 

 rivers that relate to, or be nearer to the sea, never return to 

 the fresh waters, as the salmon does always desire to do, when 

 they have once tasted the salt water ; and I do the more easily 

 believe this, because I am certain that powdered beef is a most 

 excellent bait to catch an eel ; and though Sir Francis Bacon 



* Beda or Bede, surnamed the Venerable, a monk of tlie monastery of 

 St. Peter, Durham, where he was educated from infancy, under St. John 

 of Beverly. After a life spent in the closest study, he died in his cell. 

 May, 735, aged 63. His works, in Latin, fill eight volumes folio ; and the 

 most important of them are his Ecclesiastical History from the time of 

 Julius Caesar to his own, Commentaries on Scripture, &c. He wrote ra- 

 pidly and attained great learning, but his style is inelegant, and he was 

 credulous and superstitious. — Hawkins and others. 



t Lobel, sometimes called I'Obel, but more correctly Matthias de Lobel, 

 a native of Lisle, who studied at Montpelier, and was a pupil of Rondele- 

 tius. He was eminent as a physician, and principally as a botanist. After 

 travelling extensively, he visited England by invitation of James L, wlio 

 appointed him his botanist and pliy.sician. He superintended the Botkin:- 

 cal Garden of Lord Zouch at Hackney, and in 1570 published at London 

 his J\'ova Stirpium Adversaria, afterwards Planlarum seu Stirpiiim His- 

 toria, which, with his Adversaria, wag published at Antwerp, L576. He 

 wrote some other works, and died 10 IG, aged 7S. 



X John Gerhard was a surgeon in London, one of tlie first English bota- 

 nists. In 1507 he published his great work, The Herball, or Generall 

 Historic of PI antes, fol., and two years after a Catalogue of Plants, 

 Herbs, Sfc, to the number of eleven hundred, raised and naturalized by 

 himself in his garden in Holborn. The Herball was printed in London 

 1633, fol., and the citation is fi-om lib. iii., 171, On the Goose tree, bar- 

 nacle tree, or the tree bearing geese, which has a curious wood cut. — 

 Hawkins and others. 



