CHAPTER VIII. 



THE EEL-FISHERY. 



" Moth. I will praise an eel with the same praise. 

 Armado. What, that an eel is ingenious? 

 Moth. That an eel is quick." SHAKESPEARE. 



| HE EEL is one of the fishes most extensively 

 distributed over the surface of the globe. It 

 is found in the East and West Indies ; it 

 lives under the ice of Greenland ; it pene- 

 trates into the interior of the Chinese Empire ; it teems 

 in the British rivers ; it enjoys every temperate and 

 tropical climate. 



Its reputation is not less extensive than its habitat. 

 From the most ancient times down to our own day it has 

 figured on the tables of patrician and plebeian, prince and 

 peasant, the opulent and the poor. Almost the only 

 people who refuse to count it among their food-supplies 

 are the Jews and Egyptians, Moslems and Greenlanders, 

 and, to some extent, Scotchmen. With these few excep- 

 tions, the world generally, from the epoch of Aristotle to 

 that of Darwin, has agreed in bearing unqualified testi- 

 mony to the merits of this ubiquitous favourite ; and 

 amidst the caprices of fashion, the endless mutations of 



