170 Life and Immortality. 
common and successful method, consisting in bunching a 
number of earthworms upon a worsted string, and lowering 
it near the place where the fishes are supposed to be feeding. 
So eagerly do the voracious fish seize the bait, and so fiercely 
do they bite, that they are pulled out of the water before 
they have time to collect their thoughts and disengage their 
teeth from the string. Night-lines, which are laid in the 
evening and taken up in the morning, are another plan. But 
the most successful method is by spearing. The spear used 
for the purpose is not unlike the conventional trident of 
Neptune, except that the prongs are four in number, flattened, 
slightly barbed on each edge, and spread rather widely from 
their junction with the shaft. This is pushed at random into 
the muddy banks where the Eels love to lie, and when one is 
caught, its long snake-like body is wedged in between the 
jagged prongs and lifted into the boat before it is able to 
extricate itself Almost any kind of food that it can master, 
whether aquatic or terrestrial, is eaten to satisfy the crea- 
ture’s most voracious appetite. Even mice and rats fall 
victims to its hunger, and an Eel is recorded to have been 
found floating dead on the water, having been choked to 
death by a rat which it had essayed to swallow, but which 
proved too large a morsel for its throat. 
So remarkable is the tenacity of life which this fish pos- 
sesses, that after the creature has been cut up into lengths, 
each separate piece will move as if alive, and at the touch of 
a pin’s point will curve itself as though it felt the injury. 
When all irritability has ceased, the portions will flounce 
vigorously about if placed in boiling water, and even after its 
influence has ceased will, upon the addition of salt, jump 
about as vigorously as before. There can be no real sensa- 
tion, let it be understood, as the spinal cord has been severed 
and all connection with the brain, which is the seat of sensa- 
tion, has been cut off. 
How the Eel reproduces its kind has long been a subject 
of discussion. Some held that the young is produced in a 
