374 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



naturalists^ with equal infelicity and want of warrant, 

 mistook for these germinal apodes the various leeches, 

 worms, gordii, and other parasites, which infest the giUs 

 and bodies of cod, carp, salmon, and sundry other fish. 

 Some again, supposing them to be secreted from observa- 

 tion in yet more recondite parts of these creatures' eco- 

 nomy, have sought for them in divers strange places : 

 Leuwenhoek in the urinary, and Valisnieri in the swim 

 bladder ; whilst others, when undeterred by Aristotle's 

 warning, have pretended to discover the young grig in 

 the intestinal canal. 



Even the modems do not appear to have made the 

 whole truth more apparent; for though of course aU 

 now repudiate the untenable notions of spontaneous ge- 

 neration, equivocal production, or vitalizing proliferous 

 mud, with many other absurdities gravely advanced by 

 ancient worthies, to unravel an eel's birth is still as in- 

 tricate and hopeless a task for the physiologist as for 

 Piscator to untwist the body of this most line-destroying 

 QuvoTrXrjyiaTaro'i) of creatures, when once he has gorged 

 the bait. It is certainly mortifying to be thus baffled by 

 a fish; but unless we adopt a fable, it seems we must 

 submit to a mystery, for who can say they have ever 

 taken a female in roe, or tasted a male's mUt ? MiiUer, 

 Mondini, Mitchell, and some few other naturalists be- 

 sides, declare themselves to have been thus fortimate : 

 they have actually seen both milt and roe ia eels : Mr. 

 Sept. Fontaines has discovered the perfectly formed grig 

 ' in utero matris.' John Hunter has exhibited in some 

 beautiful preparations the peculiarities of the sexual 

 organs in eels. And Rondolet, who made excellent use 

 of his eyes, though he occasionally overstrained them, 

 saw,* as he tells us, on one occasion two eels embrace 



* The same professional eyes belield a lamprey stop a cardinal's 

 ship in full sail; aloserise, like figurantes, on their tails, to dance 



