THE EEL. 183 



Usual haunts destructive to ducks. 



know not. The place I remarked them at was 

 six miles from the sea, and I am told that the 

 same phenomenon takes place every year about 

 the same season." 



The ancients imagined that these fish were 

 either created from mud, or that the scrapings 

 of their bodies, which they left on the stones, 

 were animated and became young eels: this and 

 other extravagant notions were also entertained 

 by some moderns. 



The usual haunts of eels are in mud, among 

 weeds, under roots or stumps of trees, or in holes 

 in the banks or the bottom of rivers. They are 

 partial to still water, and particularly to such as 

 is muddy at the bottom. Here they often grow 

 to an enormous size. One that was caught near 

 Peterborough, in the year 1667, measured a yard 

 and three quarters in length; and in 1799* one 

 was taken out of the Kennet, near Newbury, 

 which weighed fifteen pounds. 



When kept in ponds they have been known to 

 destroy young ducks. Sir John Hawkins, from 

 a canal near his house at Twickenham, missed 

 many of the young ducks; and, on draining, in 

 order to clean it, great numbers of large eels 

 were found in the mud. In the stomachs of 

 many of them were found, undigested, the heads 

 and part of the bodies of the victims. 



Eels are viviparous, and seldom come out of 

 their hiding-places but in the night, during which 

 time they are taken with lines that have several 



