THE SHADS, THE EELS, AND THE LAMPREYS 293 



regretted that they are not more generally developed, and that 

 our own people do not exert themselves to secure some of the 

 profit which Dutchmen derive from supplying the English 

 market. 



To describe the outward appearance of the eel to English 

 readers would be superfluous, but some of the leading charac- 

 teristics may be noticed. In the first place the eel has scales, 

 which are generally overlooked, because not only are they 

 very small and transparent, but they are embedded in the skin, 

 which, again, is so profusely anointed with slime as to render 

 superficial observation deceptive. This may serve to dis- 

 tinguish the fresh-water eel from the conger, which has no 

 scales. The eye is small and covered with transparent skin, 

 and the dorsal, caudal, and anal fins are united in a continuous 

 band, forming a broad spear-shaped point at the tip of the tail. 



The gills are a beautiful piece of mechanism. The eel is 

 a fish, and the proper place for a fish is in the water, no doubt, 

 which is necessary to keep its gills — that is, the equivalent of 

 its lungs — in working order. But the business of an eel some- 

 times obliges him to take short cuts across country (it is not 

 necessary to salvation to believe that they come by night, as 

 some have affirmed, to steal newly-sown pease !), and to fit 

 him for such journeys he has an apparatus enabling him to 

 carry water with him. The gill-openings of the eel are small 

 slits, close to the pectoral fins. These slits are protected by 

 a fine membrane stretched on slender bones after the manner 

 of the frame of an umbrella, and within each slit there is a 

 large cavity, at the back of which are the gills. The eel has 

 the power of retaining in the gill-cavity enough water to keep 

 the delicate folds or branchial laminae afloat, and so long as 

 this can be done, the fish will not die of suffocation. That 

 is part of the secret of the extraordinary tenacity of life 

 possessed by eels. When one is taken from the water these 

 gill-cavities, so important to his well-being, appear as a 

 conspicuous swelling on each side of the throat. 



