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The generation of eels has long "been a subject 

 of speculation with physiologists and naturalists, 

 and, notwithstanding all the observations and en- 

 quiries which have been made upon the subject, the 

 question is still involved in obscurity. Good old 

 father Walton was inclined to think that they might 

 be bred "either of dew, or out of the corruption of 

 the earth," and this opinion he thinks more probable, 

 seeing that goslings were produced from the rotten 

 planks of a ship or hatched from the leaves of trees. 

 This opinion of the generation of eels and Barnacle 

 geese has, however, been long abandoned. Sir E verard 

 Home, after many dissections, believed eels to be 

 hermaphrodite; and Mr. Jesse, in the first series of 

 his " Gleanings," after citing several authorities to 

 prove that eels are viviparous, thus concludes : " It 

 is, I think, now sufficiently evident that eels are 

 viviparous, though in what way they are generated 

 we are still ignorant." In the second series, however, 

 he declares that he has had reason to alter this opi- 

 nion, and that he now believes eels to be oviparous. 

 Though we are inclined to concur in this belief, we 

 by no means consider the testimony of the gar- 

 dener, who is ready to make oath that he caught an 

 eel full of roe, nor the observations of Mr. Yarrell, 

 published in the second series of the " Gleanings," as 

 decisive of the fact. The young fry of eels commonly 

 make their appearance at Kingston, in their progress 

 up the Thames, about the 1st of May, though they are 

 sometimes seen about Twickenham a fortnight ear- 



