SHARP-NOSED EEL. 289 



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 

 irritability. With a high degree of irritability and a low 

 respiration, co-exist 1st. The power of sustaining the pri- 

 vation of air and of food ; 2nd. A low animal temperature ; 

 3rd. Little activity ; 4th. Great tenacity of life. All these 

 peculiarities Eels are well known to possess. The high de- 

 gree 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 tem- 

 perature 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 

 gradually signs of life, and soon perfectly recovered. 



The mode by which young Eels are produced appears to 

 have long been a subject of inquiry, and the notions of the 

 ancients as well as of some of the moderns were numerous 

 and fanciful. Aristotle believed that they sprang from the 

 mud ; Pliny, from fragments which were separated from their 

 bodies by rubbing against rocks ; others supposed that they 

 proceeded from the carcases of animals; Helmont believed 

 that they came from May-dew, and might be obtained by the 

 following process : u Cut up two turfs covered with May- 

 dew, and lay one upon the other, the grassy sides inwards, 

 and thus expose them to the heat of the sun ; in a few hours 

 there will spring from them an infinite quantity of Eels." 

 Horse-hair from the tail of a stallion, when deposited in water, 

 was formerly believed to be a never-failing source of a supply 

 of young Eels. It was long considered certain that they 

 were viviparous : this belief had its origin probably in the 



