340, 
NOTES TO THE 
is very soft. In severe winters they are found sometimes in 
numbers close to London ; there were some in Highgate Cemetery 
last year and the year before ; they feed on a species of fir-cones 
growing in the cemetery. When some fir-trees were cut down 
near Weybridge, several old nests of crossbills were found in 
them ; it is rare to get the young ; they breed in the Hartz 
Mountains ; they are very fond of the horn-beam seed, which 
seeds before leafing. They are ^^emarlmUy tame birds. 
Eels, p. 35. — How to Catch Eels. — In the autumn floods 
the eels descend in vast numbers to the sea. They run best 
on stormy nights, especially when there is thunder about. I 
have hoard a story of an old fisherman who lived by his eel- 
trap. The eels would not run freely, so he got a drum and sat 
up all night tapping upon it. When asked what he was doing, 
he replied that he was x^laying the drum to make the eels 
believe it was thunder. 
E. Poole writes me: — "The following dodge may be useful to 
many gentlemen who OAvn large ponds. A simple way to catch eels 
is to take a corn-sack, turn down a hem, and run a line round 
at the mouth. Drop a sheep's paunch into the sack, and fill up 
with straw as tight as possible. Sink it in the pond or river. 
The eels work through the straw to the end. By drawing 
the sack up by the cord, it is closed, and you have your eels 
bagged." 
Another good plan is to put a large barrel under the fall 
which takes off the overflow from the pond in the autumn-time, 
when the eels are migrating. Bore plenty of small holes in the 
tub — these will let the water go out, but not the eels. 
The largest eels in my collection (casts, of course) are 
Tewkesbury, 7 lbs.. Yarmouth, 71bs. and Gibs. Serpentine 
London, 6 lbs. 
Statues at Oxford, p. 36. — My father's museum of geology 
was formerly situated in the Clarendon Buildings, close to 
the Theatre, where the Commemoration of founders and bene- 
factors is held. Upon the top of this building there are figures 
of the Muses cast in lead. I find the following interesting 
verses in reference to these in a book called " Strephon's 
Kevenge : a Satire on the Oxford Toasts," written in the reign 
of George I., 1718. The author, after bewailing the bad poetry 
written in those days, writes — 
" Nor is it strange, but rightly weigh the thing, 
That our soft bards so indolently sing, 
Or that the genius of the place is dead, 
When our inspiring Muses breathe in lead : 
