CHAPTER X. 



THE EEL. 



"The imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish 

 "Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish."— Shakespere. 



1 HIS fellow is not much in my line. I confess I hate the 

 sight of him; for if ever you see eels lounging about the 

 bottom of a river in England, like so many coast guard- 

 men expecting foul weather^ you may be sure the trout 

 will not rise. How could they be expected to in such low 

 company ! And if you have the bad luck to hook one, he 

 just behaves like an excited corkscrew, till he has got your 

 line into so many knots and kinks, that it will take you 

 a month of Sundays to unravel it. And then as to un- 

 hooking him. — Oh! don't talk of it. 



But some think him good eating, and like to catch 

 him, so we will give him a page or so. 



I call him an eel for the sake of common language, for 

 the convenience of ordinary anglers; for if I called him 

 a mastacemblus, not even the eel fisher would read this 

 chapter. From a fisherman's point of view, he is to all 

 intents and purposes an eel, and to be fished for in the 

 same way. He may be readily distinguished however by 

 a thin soft snout protruding from the upper lip, and by 

 a row of hard and sharp spines on the back. 



