138 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



imbedded in mud in a state of torpidity the eel 

 indicates a low degree of respiration. Dr. 

 Marshall Hall has shown that the quantity of 

 respiration is inversely as the degree of irritabi- 

 lity. With a high degree of irritability, and a 

 low respiration, co-exist — First, the power of 

 sustaining the privation of air and food, — Se- 

 condly, a low animal temperature, — Thirdly, 

 little activity, — Fourthly, great tenacity of life. 

 All these peculiarities eels are well known to 

 possess. The high degree of irritability of the 

 muscular fibre explains the restless motions 

 of eels during thunder-storms, and helps to 

 account for the enormous captures made in 

 some rivers by the use of gratings, boxes, and 

 eel-pots, or baskets, which imprison all that 

 enter. The power of enduring the effects of a 

 low temperature is shown by the fact, that eels 

 exposed on the ground till frozen, then buried 

 in snow, and at the end of four days put into 

 water, and so thawed slowly, discovered gra- 

 dually signs of life, and soon perfectly reco- 

 vered."* 



Do eels that continue in salt water, as, for 

 instance, in the Nore, and around the Margate 

 coast, hybernate, as do those which have 

 ascended the river, and attained to the fresh 

 water? We suspect not, but cannot be posi- 

 tive. It is a remarkable fact, that, tenacious of 

 life as the eel is, and capable as it is of being 

 revived from a frozen condition, it is never- 

 theless highly susceptible of cold. It some- 

 * Yarrell's British Fishes. 



