1 64 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



travel only in sunlight, and a passing cloud 

 will cause them all to disappear like a flash, 

 but when the sun shines out again they swim 

 steadily on their way. 



It used to be the custom in some places to 

 catch these little creatures in baskets, to use 

 them for bait, or even to fry them in cakes. 

 But in other places it is realised that this is a 

 short-sighted policy, since the full-grown eels 

 are much more valuable as food. Instead, 

 therefore, of trapping the elvers, people some- 

 times hang ropes of straw over the rocky 

 places to help them on their way up the river. 



From the rivers the elvers push on into the 

 smaller streams and people the ponds and 

 lakes connected with them. If the water or 

 the food-supply in one pond gets low, they 

 have no difficulty in finding another, for, un- 

 like most fishes, they are able to live for a 

 considerable time out of water, and they have 

 a way of wriggling themselves through damp 

 grass for quite considerable distances. One 

 naturalist tells us that he kept two small eels 

 for a time in an aquarium, and " they passed 

 most of the day buried in the sand at the bot- 

 tom, but night after night they made their 

 escape and were always found in the morning 



