ORIGIN OF THE SILVER EEL. 29 



about the month of June. The eggs were 

 whitish, a little transparent, and as large 

 as a mustard seed. These they produce by 

 ordinary generation. They are prolific, and 

 the young turnip suffers for their food. But 

 a part of these beetles changes every year 

 to bring forth a species of the fish kind by 

 propagating eels in them, and bringing forth 

 from May to July. Some of them have 

 one and others two, owing to cold or hot 

 situations. Most of them have two. About 

 the time of giving birth to their eels, nature 

 has taught them to seek the water, and 

 some of them travel upwards of sixty yards. 

 They die in the act of parturition, whether 

 in water or on land. I have come upon 

 them dead, and two eels twisting round 

 their limbs, in water left after rain in the 

 foot-prints of the horse, and at a great 

 distance from running water. 



3. The origin of the eel as above de- 

 scribed accounts for finding them in mosses, 

 moors, mountains, marshes, glens, and old 

 quarries where there are springs; also in 

 bogs, where no other fish could move a 

 fin on account of the rushes. They are 



