FISH AS FA THERS. 173 



a very small number of aberrant types having ever taken 

 to invading inland waters. If the life-history of the 

 salmon, however, has given rise to as much controversy 

 as the Mar peerage, the life-history of the eel is a com- 

 plete mystery. To begin with, nobody has ever so much 

 as distinguished between male and female eels ; except 

 microscopically, eels have never been seen in the act of 

 spawning, nor observed anywhere with mature eggs. 

 The ova themselves are wholly unknown : the mode of 

 their production is a dead secret. All we know is this : 

 that eels never reproduce in fresh water ; that a certain 

 number of adults descend the rivers to the sea, irregularly, 

 during the winter months ; and that some of these must 

 presumably spawn with the utmost circumspection in 

 brackish water or in the deep sea, for in the course of the 

 summer myriads of young eels, commonly called grigs, 

 and proverbial for their merriment, ascend the rivers in 

 enormous bodies, and enter every smaller or larger 

 tributary. 



If we know little about the paternity and maternity of 

 eels, we know a great deal about their childhood and 

 youth, or, to speak more eelishly, their grigginess and 

 elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make their 

 appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their 

 presence or their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, 

 and floodgates ; they force there way bodily tlirough 

 chinks and apertures ; they find out every drain, pipe, 

 or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure ; and when 

 all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to 

 dry land, like veritable snakes, and cut straight across 

 country for the nearest lake, pond, or ornamental waters. 



