THE SILURUS GLANIS. 175 



great distance from its chosen retreat. If disturbed, 

 it darts away, throwing up clouds of mud raised by 

 the sweeping motions of its tail. When its place of 

 retreat is known it may be easily caught by means of 

 a hook baited with a lively fish, and sunk sufficiently 

 deep ; the coarsest tackle may be used, and the fisher- 

 men generally haul it up bodily, like a codfish. 

 When once out of the water, the wels seems to be- 

 come almost torpid ; and I recollect especially one 

 occasion when, requiring the head of a large example 

 for examination, I was witness to the decapitation by 

 one of the Berlin fisherwomen of a perfectly healthy 

 wels of 40 or 50 Ibs. weight, the fish, from the mo- 

 ment it was placed on the block, making no further 

 struggle than by a slight vibration of the muscles of 

 the tail, the headless body afterwards disgorging a 

 fresh roach which had served as breakfast during the 

 time the fish was in the tub. 



Night-lines, spears, wicker-baskets, and nets, are 

 generally used in its capture. As we might antici- 

 pate from its habits, the wels principally preys on 

 bottom-feeding fish : roach, red-eyes, carp, tench, eels ; 

 but it will take any other moving creature, frogs and 

 all sorts of diving birds being frequently found in its 

 stomach. Salmonoids have little to fear, because 

 they rarely inhabit the same locality with the wels, 

 and even should that sometimes be the case, their 

 habits of feeding are so different from those of the 



