THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 175 



It is granted by all, or most men, that eels, for about six 

 months, that is to say, the six cold months of the year, stir 

 not up and down, neither in the rivers, nor in the pools in 

 which they usually are, but get into the soft earth or mud ; 

 and there many of them together bed themselves, and live 

 without feeding upon anything, as I have told you some 

 swallows have been observed to do in hollow trees, for those 

 cold six months ; and this the eel and swallow- do, as not being 

 able to endure winter weather : for Gesner quotes Albert us 

 to say, that in the year 1125, that year's winter being more 

 cold than usually, eels did by nature's instinct get out of the 

 water into a stack of hay in a meadow upon dry ground, and 

 there bedded themselves, but yet at last a frost killed them. 

 And our Camden relates, that in Lancashire fishes were 

 digged out of the earth with spades, where no water was near 

 to the place. I shall say little more of the eel, but that, as it 

 is observed, he is impatient of cold ; so it hath been observed, 

 that in warm weather an eel has been known to live five days 

 out of the water. 



And lastly, let me tell you that some curious searchers into 

 the natures of fish observe, that there be several sorts or kinds 

 of eels, as the silver eel, and green or greenish eel, with 

 which the river of Thames abounds, and those are called 

 grigs ; and a blackish eel, whose head is more flat and bigger 

 than ordinary eels ; and also an eel whose fins are reddish, 

 and but seldom taken in this nation, and yet taken sometimes : 

 these several kinds of eels are, say some, diversely bred ; as 

 namely, out of the corruption of the earth, and some by dew, 

 and other ways, as I have said to you : and yet it is affirmed 

 by some for certain, that the silver eel is bred by generation, 

 but not by spawning as other fish do, but that her brood come 

 alive from her, being then little live eels, no bigger nor longer 

 than a pin ': and I have had too many testimonies of this to 

 doubt the truth of it myself ; and if I thought it needful 

 I might prove it, but I think it is needless. 



And this eel, of which I have said so much to you, may 



of Antonia, a woman, for a tame lamprey, which the tenderness of her sex 

 might perhaps excuse ; but the sagacity and docility of these creatures seem 

 less wonderful than the weakness of such men as Crassus and Hortensius, in 

 becoming mourners for the death of an eel. The former of these two persons 

 was, for this his pusillanimity, reproached in the senate of Rome by Domitius, 

 in these words: "Foolish Crassus! you wept for your mursena" (or lamprey). 

 " That is more," retorted Crassus, " than you did for your two wives." (Lord 

 Bacon's " Apophthegms.") H. 



