MTTE^NID^. 381 



he speaks of city eels winding their way from our Su- 

 burral Shoreditch up to the Fleet Marketj and relates 

 that formerly, on ' opening the water -plugs in London 

 streets, enormous specimens would occasionally he found, 

 of great strength and activity, and sometimes large enough 

 entirely , to stop the passage of water to the houses !* 

 Thus, that they are not always nice in their diet, and 

 then not fit for food, must be quite apparent, but this . 

 only happens when there is iio alternative but to eat 

 dirt or die ; clean water indeed seems as necessary to the 

 well-being as it is congenial to the tastes of eels; and 

 when deprived of it from autumnal rains disturbing the 

 ooze in the rivers, where they swim, immense numbers 

 are carried down, suffocated in the foul and turbid 

 stream. Pliny mentions this fact, and adds, that at the 

 autumnal equinox great globose masses were always se- 

 cured at the mouth of the Benacus, and also in the then 

 miry waters of the usually clear Mincius.f But while 

 every one must turn with disgust from a drain-fed eel, 

 we confess a strong partiality for those from an uncon- 

 taminated stream; and though not willing to join in the 

 extravagant encomiums bestowed by the lovers of good 

 cheer in ancient Greece, can yet read with philosophical 

 forbearance of sundry personifications under which the 

 slimy eel is invoked ; now as the goddess of pleasure, 

 — sometimes as the white-armed goddess, — and finally 

 as the Helen of the dinner-table, because every guest 

 strove, like Paris, to supplant his neighbour, and keep 

 her for himself. One of these transcendant Epicureans 



* To prevent tMs inoonvenience, a grating is now placed at the 

 entrance of the main-pipes. 



t The peasants in each neighbourhood watch for them at this 

 time, and catch hundreds in nets and a variety of extempore traps, 

 and baskets of wiokerwork, — something on the plan, we presume, 

 of the osier weirs and bucks on the Thames and other eel-rivers 

 in England. 



