THE CONGER. 309 



rivers being favored localities. It sometimes happens that even in our seaport towns 

 and marine watering-places, the common river Eel is caught by those who are angling 

 in the sea for marine fish. This quality is peculiarly valuable in the Eel, as it enables 

 the Dutch fishermen, who annually supply our markets with vast numbers of these fish, 

 to bring them across the sea in vessels that are fitted with " wells" pierced for the 

 transmission of the sea-water through which the vessel is sailing. 



Numbers of these Dutch Eel-boats may be seen about Gravesend, not daring to 

 ascend the river on account of the polluted state of its water. In the wells of these 

 boats the Eels remain for ten days, and require no food. 



Eels are captured in various modes. " Bobbing," or " clodding " as it is sometimes 

 termed, is a very common and successful mode, consisting in making a bunch of earth- 

 worms strung on worsted, and lowering it near the place where the Eels are known to 

 be feeding. The voracious fish seize eagerly on the bait, and bite so fiercely, that 

 they are pulled out of the water before they can disengage their teeth from the worsted. 

 Another plan is by night-lines, which are laid in the evening and taken up in the 

 morning. 



One of the most successful methods, however, is by spearing, and is extensively 

 adopted by bargemen, many of whom always have an Eel-spear on board. The spear 

 is not unlike the conventional trident of Neptune, except that the prongs are four in 

 number, flattened, slightly barbed on each edge, and spread considerably from their 

 junction with the shaft. This is pushed at random into the muddy banks where 

 the Eels love to lie, and whenever it encounters one of these fish, the long snake-like 

 body is caught between the jagged prongs and lifted into the boat before it can 

 extricate itself. 



The food of the Eel is extremely various, for the creature is most voracious, and 

 eats every living being that it can master, whether aquatic or terrestrial. Even mice 

 and rats fall a prey to this hungry fish, and on one occasion an Eel was found floating 

 dead on the water, having been choked by a rat which it had attempted to swallow, 

 but which was too large to pass down its throat. It has even been caught with a fly 

 while the fisherman was angling for trout. 



The tenacity of life possessed by this fish is really remarkable ; and it is worthy of 

 notice that the best mode of killing Eels is to grasp them by the neck and slap their 

 tails smartly against a stone or post. The muscular irritability of the body is wonder- 

 fully enduring, and after the creature has been cut up into lengths each separate piece 

 moves about as if alive, while at the touch of a pin's point it will curve itself as if 

 it felt the injury. When all such irritability has ceased, the portions will flounce about 

 vigorously if placed in boiling water ; and even after they have remained quiet under 

 its influence, the addition of salt will make them jump about as vigorously as ever. 

 Of course there can be no real sensation, the spinal cord having been severed. 



The reproduction of the Eel has long been a subject of discussion, some persons 

 thinking that the young are produced in a living state, and others holding that they are 

 hatched from eggs. This question has, however, been set at rest by that universal 

 revealer, the achromatic microscope, which has shown that the masses of oily-looking 

 substance generally called fat are really the aggregate d clusters of eggs, and that 

 these objects, minute though they may be, not so large as the dot over the letter /, are 

 quite perfect, and under the microscope are seen to be genuine eggs. 



The BROAD-NOSED EEL is at once to be distinguished by the greater breadth of 

 its head, bluntness of its nose, and soft unctuousness of its body. It does not seem 

 to attain so great a size as its sharp-nosed relative. Besides these species, a third British 

 Eel, the SNIG, is found in some parts of England, and is known by its olive-green back 

 and the golden yellow of the under parts. The Grig is a term applied by fishermen to 

 any Eel of a small size, and even the name of Snig is employed in a very vague fashion. 



THE well-known CONGER EEL is a marine species, very common in our seas, and 

 being most usually found on the rocky portion of the coast. 



