THE EEL (>7 



and lay one on the other the grassy side inwards* 

 and thus expose them lo the heat of ther sun, in 

 a few hours there will spring from them an in- 

 finite quantity of eels. The doctrine of sponta- 

 neous or equivocal generation is now universally 

 exploded ; and all the phenomena that seem to 

 support it are accounted for on other principles. 

 These conjectures are therefore all nonsense: for 

 the immediate generation of Eels, has been suf- 

 ficiently proved to be effected in the ordinary 

 course of nature, and that they are viviparous. 

 Eels are distinguished into four kinds, viz. the 

 silver eel ': a greenish eel, called a grey : a blackish 

 eel, with a broad flat head ; and lastly, an eel with 

 reddish fins. The eel's haunts are chiefly amongst 

 weeds, under roots and stumps of trees, holes, and 

 clefts in the earth both in the banks and at bottom, 

 and in the plain mud; where they lie with 

 only their heads out, watching for prey: also 

 about flood-gates, wears, bridges, and old mills, 

 and in the still waters that are foul and muddy; 

 but the smallest eels are to be met with in all 

 sorts of rivers and soils. They conceal them, 

 selves in the winter for six months in the mud, 

 and they seldom rove about in the summer in the 

 day time, but all nightlong; at which time you may 

 take a great number of them, by laying in night- 

 lines, fastened here and there to banks, stumps of 

 trees, &c. of a proper length for the depth of the 

 water, leaded so as to lie on the ground, and a 

 proper eel-hook whipped on each, baited with 

 the following baits, which he delights in, viz. 

 garden-w6rms or his, minnows, ben'$~gufo % fish 

 garbage, loaches, small gudgeons, or miller's 

 thumbs, also small roacbes y thfc hook being laid 

 in their mouths. There are two ways to take 

 them in the day time, called sniggling and 

 bobbing. Sniggling is thus performed : take a 



