CHAPTER I. 



EELS AND ELVERS. 



ELS are among the mysteries of 

 this world. In spite of the way 

 in which Dame Science has per- 

 sistently poked her nose into 

 most things, and has harried 

 them and laid them bare, she has succeeded 

 in discovering but little about eels and their 

 mode of life. However, it would be rash to 

 go as far in our confession of ignorance as 

 a writer recently did, and declare "that we 

 know next to nothing of eels beyond the 

 periods of their migration." If we knew nothing 

 more than that, we should indeed know but 

 little, as in many places eels never migrate at 

 all, but grow fat and flourish from year to year 

 in the pond or lake where they were born, 

 without ever leaving it to seek the brackish 



B 2 



