CHAP. XIII. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 165 



to breed by generation, as other fish do, ask, If any man 

 ever saw an Eel to have a spawn or melt? And they are 

 answered, that they may be as certain of their breeding 

 as if they had seen spawn ; for they say, that they are 

 certain that Eels have all parts fit for generation, like 

 other fish, 1 but so small as not to be easily discerned, by 

 reason of their fatness ; but that discerned they may be ; 

 and that the He and the She-Eel may be distinguished 

 by their fins. And Rondeletius says, he has seen Eels 

 cling together like dew-worms. 



And others say, that Eels, growing old, breed other 

 Eels out of the corruption of their own age ; which, Sir 

 Francis Bacon says, exceeds not ten years. And others 

 say, that as pearls are made of glutinous dew-drops, 

 which are condensed by the sun's heat in those countries, 

 so Eels are bred of a particular dew, falling in the months 

 of May or June on the banks of some particular ponds or 

 rivers, apted by nature for that end ; which in a few days 

 are, by the sun's heat, turned into Eels : and some of the 

 Ancients have called the Eels that are thus bred, the off- 

 spring of Jove. I have seen, in the beginning of July, 

 in a liver not far from Canterbury, some parts of it 

 covered over with young Eels, about the thickness of a 

 straw ; and these Eels did lie on the top of that water, as 

 thick as motes are said to be in the sun : and I have heard 

 the like of other rivers, as namely, in Severn, where they 

 are called Yelvers; and in a pond, or mere, near unto 

 Staffordshire, where, about a set time in summer, such 

 small Eels abound so much, that many of the poorer sort 

 of people that inhabit near to it, take such Eels out of 

 this mere with sieves or sheets ; and make a kind of Eel- 

 cake of them, and eat it like as bread. And Gesner 



(1) That fishes are furnished with parts fit for generation cannot he doubted, 

 since it is a common practice to castrate them. See the method of doing it in 

 Phitos. Tram. Vol. XLVIH. Part II. for the >ear 1754, page 870. 



