THE FOURTH DAY. 



CHAP. XIII. Observations of the EEL, and other Fish that want 

 scales, and how to fish for them. 



PlSCATOR. 



IT is agreed by most men, that the Eel is a most dainty fish : 

 the Romans have esteemed her the Helena of their feasts, 

 and some the queen of palate-pleasure. But most men differ 

 about their breeding : some say they breed by generation as 

 other fish do ; and others, that they breed, as some worms do, 

 of mud ; as rats and mice, and many other living creatures, 

 are bred in Egypt by the sun's heat when it shines upon the 

 overflowing of the river Nilus ; or out of the putrefaction of 

 the earth, and divers other ways. Those that deny them to 

 breed by generation as other fish do, ask, If any man ever saw 

 an Eel to have a spawn or melt ? And they are answered, 

 that they may be as certain of their breeding as if they had 

 seen them spawn : for they say, that they are certain that Eels 

 have all parts fit for generation, like other fish, but so small as 

 not to be easily discerned, by reason of their fatness, but that 

 discerned they may be, and that the he and the she Eel may 

 be distinguished by their fins. And Rondeletius says, he has 

 seen Eels cling together like dew- worms. 



And others say, that Eels, growing old, breed other Eels out 

 of the corruption of their own age, which, Sir Francis Bacon 

 says, exceeds not ten years. And others say, that as pearls are 

 made of glutinous dewdrops, which are condensed by the sun's 

 heat in those countries, so Ee'ls are bred of a particular dew, 

 falling in the months of May or June on the banks of some 

 particular ponds or rivers, apted by nature for that end ; which 

 in a few days are by the sun's heat turned into Eels : and some 



