202 ABOUT THE EEL. 



gravely affirms that they are engendered by mud. An- 

 other, that they spring from the hairs of a horse's tail, 

 after they have been sufficiently soaked. A third pro- 

 tests that eels have no other parents than crabs. Pliny 

 supposed that the old eels committed suicide by rubbing 

 themselves against rocks, and that out of the pieces and 

 particles thus detached a new brood issued. Van Hel- 

 mont, a medieval philosopher, attributed them to the 

 dews of a May morning; while others have conceived 

 them to be developed from the various parasites which 

 infest the gills and bodies of carp, cod, salmon, and simi- 

 lar fish. 



The fact is, the birth of the eel is one of the mysteries 

 of natural history. And notwithstanding the researches 

 of naturalists, all we can safely say is that the eel is ovo- 

 viviparous, and that its young make their appearance 

 with the genial spring. There is no doubt, however, 

 about their fecundity ; and wherever they take up their 

 quarters, they soon accumulate in countless hosts. Spal- 

 lanzani says that in the marshes of Comacchio nine hun- 

 dred and ninety thousand were caught in a single year. 

 In Jutland the fishermen sometimes capture nine to ten 

 thousand at a single cast of the net. A French writer 

 asserts that along the banks of the Lower Seine they are 

 caught by the bucketful ! In the ditches around Rouen 

 they abound in such numbers, says Pouchet, that the 

 children amuse themselves by catching the slippery crea- 

 tures with the hand. We know of a fish-pond into 

 which half-a-dozen were thrown to stock it, and in the 

 following year we never laid our night-lines without 

 securing a satisfactory harvest. 



In spring the young eels ascend the rivers in countless 



