444 f . NATURAL HISTORY. 



they feed. In the winter, while they are lying torpid in the 

 rnud, multitudes are taken by spears many-pronged instru- 

 ments, whose prongs are feathered with recurved barbs, which, 

 when pushed into the mud, entangle the eels, and effectually 

 prevent their escape. 



There are supposed to be four species of English eel ; name- 

 ly, the Sharp-nosed, the Broad-nosed, the Snig, and the Grig. 



CONGER. (Lat. frvtn Gr. Toyypof, a Conger Eel.) 



Vulgaris (Lat. co^nntwi), the Conger. 



The CONGER EEL is found in all the. rocky parts of the 

 British coasts, and is exceedingly common on the coasts of 

 Cornwall. 



It is usually caught with a hook, the best bait of which is a 

 sand-launce, a little fish belonging to the same family as the 

 eels, and which buries itself five or six inches deep in the sand 

 when the tide ebbs, arid releases itself on the next flood tide. 

 The fishermen rake it out of the sand with iron hooks. A 

 pilchard is a common bait for the Conger. 



The size of this fish is sometimes very great. Yarrell men- 

 tions, in his " British Fishes," that " specimens weighing eighty- 

 six pounds, one hundred and four pounds, and even one hundred 

 and thirty pounds, have been recorded, some of them measuring 

 more than ten feet long and eighteen inches in circumference. 

 They possess great strength, and often form very formidable an- 

 tagonists if assailed among rocks, or when drawn into a boat 

 with a line." 



