CHAP. XIII.] THE rOUBTII DAT. 237 



discerned, by reason of their fatness, but that discerned 

 they may be, and that the he and the she eel may be dis- 

 tinguished by their fins. And E-ondeletius 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 offspring of Jove. I have seen 

 in the beginning of July, in a river 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 quotes Venerable 

 Bede l to say, that in England there is an island called Ely, 

 by reason of the innumerable number of eels that breed in 

 it. But that eels may be bred as some worms, and some 

 kind of bees and wasps are either of dew, or out of the 

 corruption of the earth, seems to be made probable by 

 the barnacles and young goslings bred by the sun's heat 



with respect to spontaneous generation what has been said in a note at 

 page 187 regarding the Pike may be repeated here. It has long been 

 in dispute whether Eels are oviparous or viviparous, but Mr. Yarrel 

 seems to have set this question at rest by proving them to be oviparous. 

 Mr. Young, the Duke of Sutherland's salmon -factor, has bred them 

 artificially from spawn. ED. 



1 The most universal scholar of his time ; he was born at Durham, about 

 671, and bred under St. John of Beverley. He was a man of great virtue, 

 and remarkable for a most sweet and engaging disposition ; he died in 734, 

 and lies buried at Durham. His works make 8 vols. folio, of which the 

 most valuable and best known is his "Ecclesiastical History." H. 



