MUE^NID^. 371. 



pulsion, they!' The Boeotian eels were all good; the 

 bogs swarmed with them, but one place they have im- 

 mortalized, — the lake Copais. Pausanias says, ' the fish 

 of this lake differ not in kind from those found elsewhere, 

 but the eels are of immense size, and very sweet.'* Athe- 

 nseus also makes two of his bons-vivans praise these eels 

 for their size and excellence. Lysistrata, after wishing 

 destruction might light on Bceotia and all the Boeotians, 

 amended the phrase by adding this deprecatory clause, 

 ' except the eels ! ' 



The moderns, like the ancients, ha,ve their favourite 

 eeleries : the swamps of Comacchio,t near Venice, sup- 

 ply that part of Italy in abundance ; ia France, Nar- 

 bonne and Montpelier rank high on account of the 

 bigness of their eels ; Aldrovandi speaks of some weigh- 

 ing twenty pounds, and Eondolet records others, from 

 the same locality, of four cubits long, and as thick as a 

 man's arm. The Seine about Elboeuf swarms with them. 

 In Prussia they attain occasionally a length of twelve 

 feet, and are so abundant that from the single locality of 

 Worken a hundred thousand are said to be exported an- 

 nually to England. In the Elbe, specimens occur of 

 sixty pounds' weight ; in the Ganges, orientals stretch- 

 ing to upwards of thirty feet. It would be tedious to 

 quote more foreign sites, but we may mention, as more 

 immediately interesting to ourselves, some English ones; 



* Some preferred salt-water, to lake, eels, fj Sc Xifivaia tyxiKvs 

 Tijs daXaa-a-ias iariv aa-TOjiasripa. 



t These swamps are traversed by bushes and artificial hedges, 

 with blind alleys, where they are taken in prodigious quantities 

 (' often sixty thousand pounds weight,' according to SpaUanzani, 

 ' in one night'). The fishery takes place twice a year , when the 

 eels go to, and when they return from, the sea. These migra- 

 tions are often suspended or interrupted, either by a fuU moon, or 

 by fires accidentally lit in the vicinity of the anguillary encamp- 

 ment. 



