276 SNAILS AND SLUGS 



all fish from the sea, eel-fare included, has been used 

 as an argument in support of the belief that eels can 

 and do breed in fresh water. Yet it is scarcely possible 

 that in doing so they can have eluded the vigilance of 

 naturalists ; the stock of Thames eels must have been 

 recruited and maintained by way of the canal system 

 which connects that river with the Severn. That they have 

 not come through the Thames estuary is proved by the 

 fact that it became impossible to convey eels alive from 

 Holland, as was formerly done, in the wells of the vessel ; 

 for the Thames water poisoned or suffocated them. They 

 are now brought over dead, in boxes. 



LII 



Scant regard is paid to snails and slugs, even by the 

 snails and increasing number of persons who in this 

 Slugs country give sympathetic heed to animals of 



humbler grade than themselves. Indeed, it is a rare 

 thing to find an amateur in zoology who extends his 

 observations beyond the vertebrate classes and the more 

 conspicuous insect orders, such as butterflies and moths. 

 I possess, it is true, an amateur friend who has con- 

 tributed a good deal to what is known of centipedes, 

 and that at the cost of harassing anxiety to his family. 

 Of a truth, it is no light thing to be the wife of a 

 specialist in centipedes. She learns to dread the arrival 

 of boxes bearing foreign postage stamps by reason 

 of the exotic arthropods of forbidding aspect they 

 may contain, which, when they escape, as they often 

 do, move swiftly upon an indiscriminate warpath. But 

 I have never met with an amateur in molluscs. There 



