CONSTANCE CHUB AND WELRER. 207 



stones, which in this country would make mothers 

 anxious, and stand for sudden death, but I never 

 heard of any harm arising from this custom. 



One piping hot day, whilst watching these gamins^ 

 who, with their hats stuck all over with unfortunate 

 live butterflies, impaled with pins, of every size and 

 colour, were fishing for chub, a lot of people appeared 

 on the road following a man who had something over 

 his shoulder, which at first sight appeared like part 

 of the hose of a fire-engine,, and was trailing on the 

 dusty road. On nearer approach it seemed to be a 

 huge eel an eel of monstrous dimensions, and of all 

 the horrible ugly brutes it was the ugliest. " Mon- 

 strum horrenditm> inform e> ingens? as the poet has it. 

 A most repulsive-looking fellow, of quite seven feet 

 long, and they said weighed a hundred pounds, he 

 was as black as ebony, perhaps a slight bluish cast 

 in him, like a porpoise's back, with a somewhat dusky 

 white belly, a head as ugly as a toad's, and as large 

 and flat as a large otter's, and from his nose protruded 

 two long black feelers, fully a foot and a half long. 

 So hideous an animal I never saw in the shape of 

 a fish before, but fish he was, and went by the name 

 of a welrer, or weller, and was caught in a small lake 

 a few miles from Constance, called the Mindel See. 



