BEPEODUOTIOlSr OF THE EEL. 635 



Eels are caught. Since the Eel moves with ease only upon the grass, its return to the water is cut 

 off by the soil which has been thrown up. The peasants consider it as a sign of approaching 

 stormy weather when the Eels come out of the water upon dry land." 



"A person writes to me from Lyck: 'In storms they come out into the pea-patches, and at this 

 time people spread sand or ashes around, and thus prevent their return.' Such tales are even now 

 numerous in the newspapers. 



"The small size of the gill-opening makes it possible for the Eel to live for a long time out of the 

 water, and it is possible that in their wanderings over moist meadows they may find places in which 

 there are snails and other desirable food. The explanation of their supposed wanderings over the 

 pea-patches is, that the Eels, which have been found at different times in the fields or meadows, 

 have been lost by poachers, who threw them away in their flight. Many times dead Eels have 

 been found upon meadows over which they have swam, the meadows being flooded, and, in spite 

 of the nearness of the water, have afterwards been unable to return to it. 



"Although the activity and tendency among the young Eels to wander is very great, yet we can- 

 not believe in the wandering of adult Eels over wide stretches of land. According to Spallanzani, 

 in Comacchio, where for many centuries an eel fishery of immense extent has been carried on, 

 although these fish are found in numerous ponds and lagoons, the fishermen have never yet seen 

 an Eel wandering over the land; and once when, on account of the drying up of the water, the 

 Eels died by the thousand, not one of them made the attempt to escape by a short journey over- 

 land into the neighboring lake or into the river Po. 



" The Eel occurs in all our waters, with the exception of small rapid brooks. The fishermen 

 distinguish many varieties based upon the differences in the form of the head or color and the 

 varying proportions in the length of the body and tail ; and the older ichthyologists have followed 

 their opinions without sufficient reason. 



"By rapid growth the Eel attains the length of twenty-four to thirty inches, and often a greater 

 size. On account of their fat, which is very highly flavored, and the absence of bones, they are 

 everywhere valued, and are caught in various ways. The most profitable method of capture is in 

 eel-weirs and eel-baskets, and in traps by the use of nets, and on hooks they are also caught in 

 great quantities. In winter many Eels are taken with spears on the shelving shores where they 

 lie buried in the mud in a state of torpidity. In this fishery very often more are wounded than 

 captured, and, in addition to the large Eels, great quantities of small ones are taken." 



Ancient beliefs concbening the eepeoduction of the Eel. — The reproduction of the 

 Eel, continues Benecke, has been an unsolved riddle since the time of Aristotle, and has given rise 

 to the most wonderful conjectures and assertions. Leaving out of question the old theories that the 

 Eels are generated from slime, from dew, from horsehair, from the skins of the old Eels, or from 

 those of snakes, and the question as to whether they are produced by the female of the Eel or by 

 that of some other species of fish, it has for centuries been a question of dispute whether the Eel is 

 an egg-laying animal or whether it produces its young alive ; although the fishermen believe that 

 they can tell the male and female Eels by the form of the snout. A hundred years ago no man 

 had ever found the sexual organs in the Eel. 



Jacoby has remarked that the Eel was from the earliest times a riddle to the Greeks ; while ages 

 ago it was known by them at what periods all other kinds of fishes laid their eggs, such discoveries 

 were never made with reference to the Eel, although thousands upon thousands were yearly applied 

 to culinary uses. The Greek poets, following the usage of their day, which was to attribute to 



'A live and active Eel, a few days since, was dug out from a depth of five feet in the soil of Exeter, New 

 Hampshire.— Gtacfster Telegraph, October 26, 1870. 



