BOBBING FOR EELS. 65 



stream, allowing the worms to rest on the bottom. 

 Willie stated that it would be a quarter of an hour or so 

 before the eels below us had time to fed the smell of the 

 worms, and make their way up, and suggested that in 

 the meantime, it would be advisable to light the cutties, 

 and taste a drop of the " creature ;" which sensible pro- 

 position was seconded by the boatmen, and carried, nem. 

 con. For the first ten minutes or so, not an eel disturbed 

 our apparatus ; but, according to his prediction, in little 

 more than a quarter of an hour, we were literally beset 

 by legions, which seemed to congregate from all parts of 

 the water, and kept up an incessant tugging and tearing 

 at the worms, like a pack of hungry hounds at a carcase. 

 As soon as we felt one of the fellows give two or 

 three hearty pulls, so as to indicate that he had gorged 

 one of the worms, with a portion of the worsted, we 

 quickly hauled the apparatus into the boat, when master 

 eel, unwilling to lose his supper without a struggle for 

 it, kept his grip like grim death, until poised high in air 

 immediately above the boat, he dropped quietly down 

 among our feet, and wriggled about in the bilge water to 

 his heart's content, until the time came for giving him 

 his quietus, by a stab through the neck, so as to divide 

 the spine.* Some people have rather a nervous objection 

 to those slimy individuals wriggling about amongst their 

 legs, like aquatic serpents, but the veteran sportsman 

 has no such qualms. In order to be certain of a capture, 



* Perhaps it may interest bottom-fishers to know that the quickest 

 method of despatching these wonderfully tenacious gentry, is to give 

 them a smart blow on the belly, just above the vent, with a small stick. 



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