246 PHYSOSTOMI. 



wHch is often successful in obtaining good catches of descending fish. 

 Thompson says at Toome " they are taken in nets which may be compared to 

 Bugar-loaves, with the tops cut off, each from 14 to 16 yards long, and placed 

 between weirs." A blow on the tail is said to quiet an eel. In appropriate 

 localities snigs are stated to be sometimes taken when the openings of the 

 eel-buck are down stream. 



In the rivers and broads of East Anglia " eel-sets " are employed : these are 

 wall-nets of small meshes set across the stream, the foot rope being weighted and 

 resting on the bottom, while wooden floats are used along its upper edge, and 

 these are fixed to three stakes, one being near each bank and the third in the 

 centre of the stream. They are used for the silver eel, and arrest them during 

 their autumn migration seawards, and in this way tons are occasionally captured 

 in Norfolk. The opinion prevails that it will not readily take a bait or be speared. 

 Baits. — Trimmers baited with roach or other silvery fish ; the bait being near 

 the bottom, also night lines. Atkinson (Zoologist, 1844, p. 528) remarks upon 

 never having caught very large eels in the spring or early summer, or on moon- 

 light nights, except the water was foul. They often remove the bait without 

 being hooked, while gudgeons are preferred to minnows. In one piece of water he 

 cduld not induce them to take Prussian carp. In some of the shallower Norfolk 

 broads, according to Lubbock, the fisherman has a bundle of osier wands in his 

 boat, each about 7 feet in length and sharpened at the thicker end ; about a yard 

 of strong string is attached to each. Hooks baited with small fish are beside 

 him, and as he floats along he attaches it to one of his lines and sticks his osier 

 twig down wherever he perceives an opening among the weeds at the bottom. 

 The advantage is that no struggles of eels entangle his line, each being inde- 

 pendent of the other. In Norfolk bahbing or bobbing is thus carried on : a 

 number of lob worms are threaded by means of a needle on worsted, until a 

 bunch is formed. A weight is attached and the bait lowered to the bottom. 

 The babber sits in his boat all night with a short rod in each hand, and every 

 now and then lifts the bab a little. If a bite, he lifts it gently into the boat, the 

 eel's teeth having become entangled in the worsted. The great time for this is 

 when roach and bream are ronding or spawning in the spring, then the eels follow 

 them ; it is useless bahbing anywhere except in the spawning beds. You can hear 

 the eels sucking away at the spawn in the weeds, and they gorge themselves to 

 such an extent that they will lie motionless on their backs in the gravel. There 

 are two kinds of eel-spears employed in the Broads' district, the prick is con- 

 structed of four broad serrated blades or tines spread out like a fan, and the eel 

 becomes wedged between them. The dart is made of a cross piece with barbed 

 spikes set in it like the teeth of a rake. The spearer watches for bubbles, which 

 denote the presence of an eel, and then uses his spear. In some places the eel-spear 

 is known as " eelshear " or " elger." Bragging or sniggling is thus performed : 

 when the water is low, and on a hot summer's day, a small hook baited with a red- 

 or dew- worm is affixed to a long line, one end of which is held in the hand. Then 

 the upper end of the hook is loosely inserted into the cleft of a long hazel-wand. 

 Holes or appropriate places for eels are searched for and the bait quietly placed 

 therein. The eels must have time to gorge the bait and be very leisurely 

 extracted from their retreat, for lying doubled up in the hole, they will, if much 

 force is exerted, break the line. Powdered beef, a frog, minnow, intestines 

 of fowl or fish, particularly the ofl'al of mackerel, herrings, or pilchards, while a 

 pride, Petromyzon branchialis, exceeds every other bait for night lines. 



Breeding. — Prom the time of the Greeks this has been , a difficulty to 

 naturalists. Thus, Aristotle thought they sprang from mud. Pliny had an idea 

 that fragments of the skin of the parents rubbed ofi' against the rocks developed 

 into young ones, while Hclmont gives the following curious recipe : — " Cut up 

 two turfs covered with May dew, and lay one upon the other, the grassy sides 

 inwards, and then expose them to the heat of the sun ; in a few hours there will 

 spring up an infinite quantity of eels." 



Horsehair from the tail of a stallion was asserted to be a never-failing source 

 of young eels. 



