Life in Autumn Storm 259 



A still stranger impulse of migration than that of 

 the salmon is alive on stormy autumn nights in the 

 current of the flooded stream. It is then, most 

 of all, that the eels throng downwards on that 

 mysterious journey of which the goal has only lately 

 been discovered in the deep seas, after the absence 

 of all knowledge of their breeding habits had given 

 free play for ages to the most fantastic popular 

 beliefs. Such nights seem to close an era of time, 

 and to bring earth and heaven into fusion, for the 

 world to be born again. In the autumn storm 

 there is a stirring even of the slime to its mother ; 

 and from their lairs in the slough the eels return 

 to the sea. 



