144 ANGLING 



where the cold is not too severe ; and he is to be met 

 with on the most sumptuous as well as on the most 

 frugal tables — food alike for the London alderman and 

 the poor houseless man in the streets. 



The haunts of this fish are familiar to every angler. 

 He inhabits all kinds of waters, ponds, lakes, ditches, 

 trout-streams, rivers. No water is too dirty for him, 

 nor too pure. He thrives in the muddiest holes, and 

 grows fat and sleek among the stones of the mountain 

 torrent. A fresh-water fish in all his habits, yet if he 

 gets into the salt water he shows little anxiety to leave 

 it again ; and though it evidently afiects his colour, he 

 grows prodigiously in it, and gets as fat as a porpoise. 

 No matter where he may be fishing with a simk bait, 

 the experienced angler is never surprised when he pulls 

 out an eel. In short, this fish is almost universal, and 

 his attachment to one place rather than another is very 

 problematical. Wherever he can get food, there he is ; 

 nay, indeed, he has been sometimes found in situations 

 where, to all appearance, he could get none. 



Various have been the opLaions about the mode in 

 which eels are generated. Writers on fishing, one after 

 the other, recapitulate the old opiaions, and nearly in 

 the same words. Some of these opinions are very 

 diverting and curious. We are told that one ancient 

 author supposed they were born of the mud ; another, 

 from little bits scraped off the bodies of large eels, when 

 they rubbed themselves against stones ; another, from 

 the putrid flesh of dead animals thrown into the water ; 

 another, from the dews which cover the earth in May ; 

 another, from the water alone ; and an old and deep- 

 rooted notion entertained in the north of England at 

 this hour is, that eels are generated from horse-hairs 

 thrown into the water. 



The following statement wears a reasonable appear- 

 ance, and will account for the story from Bowlker, 

 quoted in The Angler's Sure Guide : — 



"The eel proceeds from an egg. The egg is hatched in the 

 body of the female, as in fish of the ray species. A slight 

 pressure on the lower part of the body of the female facilitates 



