CHAP. XIII. 1 



THE rOURTH DAT. 241 



it myself ; and if I thought it needful I might prove it, but 

 I think it is needless. 



And this eel, of which I have said so much to you, may 

 be caught with divers kinds of baits: as namely, with 

 powdered-beef; with a lob, or garden-worm ; with a minnow ; 

 or gut of a hen, chicken, or the guts of any fish ; or with 

 almost any thing, for he is a greedy fish. 1 But the eel may 

 be caught, especially, with a little, a very little lamprey, 

 which some call a pride, and may in the hot months be found 

 many of them in the river Thames, and in many mud-heaps 

 in other rivers ; yea, almost as usually as one finds worms in 

 a dunghill. 



Next note, that the eel seldom stirs in the day, but then 

 hides himself ; and therefore he is usually caught by night, 

 with one of these baits of which I have spoken, and may be 

 then caught by laying hooks, which you are to fasten to the 

 bank, or twigs of a tree ; or by throwing a string cross the 

 stream with many hooks at it, and those baited with the 

 aforesaid baits ; and a clod or plummet, or stone, thrown 

 into the river with this line, that so you may in the morning 

 find it near to some fixed place, and then take it up with a 

 drag-hook or otherwise. 2 But these things are, indeed, too 

 common to be spoken of, and an hour's fishing with any 

 angler will teach you better both for these and many other 



1 To this truth, I myself can bear witness. When I dwelt at Twicken- 

 ham, a large canal adjoined to my house, which I stocked with fish. I had 

 from time to time broods of ducks, which, with their young ones, took to 

 the water. One dry summer, when the canal was very low, we missed 

 many young ducks, but could not find out how they went. Eesolving to 

 make advantage of the lowness of the water to clean the canal, a work 

 which had not been done for thirty years before, I drained and emptied it, 

 and found in the mud a great number of large eels. Some of them I 

 reserved for the use of my family, which, being opened by the cook, 

 surprised us all ; for in the stomachs of many of them were found, undi- 

 gested, the necks and heads of young ducks, which doubtless were those of 

 the ducks we had missed. The fact seems to have been, that the water 

 being shallow, they became an easy prey, and were pulled under by the 

 eels, or if you will by the heels. H. They will not only feed on young 

 ducks, as I know to my cost, but also on water-rats. I have also 

 witnessed (and the same thing was observed in one of the Cumberland 

 lakes) a number of small eels drive a shoal of little fish to the side of the 

 canal in Hampton Court Park, and there greedily feed on them. ED. 



2 This method will succeed with trout and other fish besides eels ; but 

 the genuine angler will not hold this to be good sport. R. 



u 



