376 PROSE HALIEUTICS. 



attending their removal to ponds in summer; he recom- 

 mends therefore, by way of securityj that (Greek) eel- 

 ponds, 67i^eXeft)i'e9, be stocked in winter. We must re- 

 member, however, before following this advice, what a 

 different atmosphere to our own an Aristotelian eel was 

 used to. In this cold latitude, eels manage to survive 

 the winter only by keeping close in mud-baths, where 

 they can obtain that equable amount of warmth neces- 

 sary for their unprotected skins, and without which they 

 cannot exist. It is to escape rapid and violent depres- 

 sions in the thermometric range, that they frequent estu- 

 aries and the mouths of rivers, ' where the commingling 

 and consequent condensation of the fresh and salt waters, 

 raises the temperature by several degrees above that of 

 either the open sea or the river nearer its source.'* It is 

 probable, too, we think, that the knots of eels which float 

 down rivers in autumn, cohere into these masses for the 

 sake of the warmth they derive from such close cuddling. 

 No eels are foimd either in the Danube or in its tribu- 

 taries ; their waters, being immediately derived from al- 

 pine glaciers, are, it would seem, too cold for the naked 

 skin of this scaleless fish.t 



When pond eels, either from caprice or from the fail- 

 ure of sufficient supplies, would change their quarters, 

 instinct prompts the whole commimity to abandon the 

 locality, and to seek another habitat more congenial to 



* Dr. Eoots. 



t They seem to have a strong instinctive dread of cold water, 

 as appears from the following incident, quoted by Gesner from the 

 ' Annals of Angsburg.' ' One hard winter, when all the pond-fish 

 in this locality were frozen or suffocated under the ice, the eels 

 escaped to land, and getting into some ricks, were found imbedded 

 in the hay, quite dead.' A cold winter wiU sometimes destroy a 

 large dormitory of them even in Italy : thus at Comacchio (the 

 ancient Bonacua, famed since the days of Pliny for its bed of eels) 

 four millions of those fish perished during one inclement season. 



