228 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



powerfully pleads for the protection and transplantation of the 

 elvers wherever they are likely to prosper. 



Eels are extremely susceptible of cold ; none whatever are 

 found in the Arctic regions, and at the approach of winter they 

 bury themselves in the mud, where they remain in a state of 

 torpidity until the genial warmth of spring recalls them to a 

 more active state of existence. In this condition they are fre- 

 quently taken by eel-spears, and in Somersetshire the people 

 know how to find the holes in the banks of rivers in which eels 

 are laid up, by the hoar-frost not lying over them as it does 

 elsewhere, and dig them out in heaps. Though generally only 

 from two to three feet long, eels sometimes acquire a much 

 larger size. Specimens six feet long and fifteen pounds in weight 

 are occasionally captured, and Yarrell saw at Cambridge the 

 preserved skins of two which weighed together fifty pounds. 

 They were taken on draining a fen-dyke at Wisbeach. As eels 

 are but slow in growth, these sizes speak for a great longevity. 

 The Conger is in its general appearance so nearly allied 

 to the common eel that it might 

 easily be mistaken for the same 

 species. It, however, materially dif- 

 fers from it by its darker colour in 

 the upper part, and its brighter hue 

 beneath, by its dorsal fin beginning 

 uear the head, and by its snout generally projecting beyond 

 the lower jaw. 



This marine giant of the eel tribe attains a length of ten feet, 

 and a weight of 130 pounds, and is well known on all the rocky 

 parts of the coast of the British Islands, though nowhere more 

 abundant than on the Cornish coast, where, according to Mr. 

 Couch, it is not uncommon for a boat with three men to bring 

 on shore from five hundredweight to two tons. The fishing 

 for congers is always performed at night, and not unattended 

 with danger, as it is quite a common occurrence for a conger to 

 attack the fishermen with open jaws, and so great is the strength 

 of the large specimens that they have occasionally succeeded in 

 pulling the fisherman quite out of his boat, if by any chance 

 he has fastened the line to his arm. The congers that keep 

 among rocks hide themselves in crevices, where they are not 

 unfrequently left by the retiring tide ; but in situations free 



