CHAPTEE XVII. 

 MURJENW^. 



The Eel. 



rpHE notices of eels left us by the ancients are so ample 

 -*- that a memoir might easily be compiled out of ma- 

 terials collected from their writings. No fish, perhaps, 

 ever enjoyed so wide a celebrity, or has retained it so 

 long. With the exception of Jews and Egyptians, Scotch- 

 men, Mussulmans, and Greenlanders, in modern times, 

 and some leading members of the faculty, then and now, 

 eels have been as largely eaten as they are extensively 

 distributed.* The Jews proscribed them their tables 

 from alleged necessity, the Levitical law being supposed 

 to prohibit eels as unclean. 'Les Juifs d'aujourd'hui,' 

 Lacepede pithily remarks, ' qui habitent souvent des pays 

 oil I'anguille est tres-commune, mais qu'ils croient com- 

 prise dans la defense faite par la loi de Moise de manger 



* Tke eel is found in the East and West Indies, wriggling xmder 

 the ice of Greenland, and winding his way without let or hin- 

 drance through the very heart of the Celestial Empire: enjoying 

 every temperate latitude, and ubiquitous over the globe as man 

 himself. This was always the case ; and few fossil pie-crusts con- 

 taining fish have been anywhere broken into, where eels have not 

 been discovered. The all but universal spread of this species 

 makes its absence from some waters the more remarkable and 

 difficult to explain. Sometimes physical obstructions seem suffi- 

 cient to account for this ; as, for instance, for its absence from the 

 Lake of Geneva, there being no inlet hitherward up the Rhone : 

 but neither is it found in the Danube, where no such difficulty 

 occurs, and into which, had eels the will, they might easily, like 

 other fish, find a way.. 



