ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 37 



originated from fragments rubbed off their bodies by 

 friction against the rocks, Helmont stated that they 

 came from the May dew, others have expressed the 

 belief that they originate from horse hair, gills of fish, 

 from dead animals thrown into the water, etc. 



Perhaps, however, the most extraordinary theory 

 in regard to the propagation of these fish was that 

 elaborately described by a certain North Country 

 weaver, by name David Cairncross, who, as a result 

 of many years of patient research, published in 1862, 

 a small treatise entitled The Origin of the Silver 

 Eel, in which he announced that the progenitor of 

 the silver eel was a small beetle. The frontispiece of 

 his book represents a variety of water beetle lying 

 on its back in a pool of water, giving birth to twin 

 eels. It is curious to find that a similar belief was 

 held in Sardinia; according to Jacoby, the water 

 beetle, Dytiscus roeselii, is there believed to be the 

 progenitor of the eel, and is accordingly called the 

 " Mother of Eels." According to The Riverside 

 Natural History (1888), "the assignment of such 

 maternity to the water beetle is doubtless due to 

 the detection of the hair-worm, or Gordius, in the 

 insect by sharp-sighted but unscientific observers, 

 and, inasmuch as the beetle inhabits the same 

 waters as the eel, a very illogical deduction has 

 led to connect the two together." 



For a long time it was held that eels were viviparous, 

 and as recently as 1840, Elaine, in his most excellent 

 Encyclopedia of Rural Sports ', stated that "The eel is 



