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ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
"water, and if forced into it by them, when deposited 
in the trunks of their boats, they turn round to 
escape, and soon die if they are not relieved. It 
seems probable that some unpleasant vegetable parti- 
cles are held in solution by the waters of the Avon, 
which, notwithstanding its universal praises by the 
poets, is in effect little better than a winding stagnant 
pool, and offers no advantages to the fish, who prefer 
a quick flowing stream with a gravelly bed, and 
dislike the muddy bottom of the Avon. 
In the month of April the shores of the Severn are 
annually darkened with innumerable quantities of 
elvers, which are seen fringing the sides of the river 
with a black ascending line, which appears in constant 
motion. The elvers, in their progress from the 
ocean, continue visible for many weeks, and precede 
the migration of the shads. These elvers were 
formerly considered to be the young of the conger 
eel, Anguilla conger, but Dr. Fleming suggests in his 
" History of British Animals," what has indeed been 
since fully confirmed, that they are the fry of the 
common eel, A. vulgaris. It is well known that the 
latter spawns in the sea, and great numbers migrate 
to the coast in the dark and stormy autumnal nights 
for this purpose. The young ones appear as elvers 
in the following spring, and proceed in myriads up 
the mouths of rivers to journey to the fresh-water 
lakes and marshes inhabited by their parents. When 
the elvers appear in the river they are taken in great 
quantities with sieves of hair cloth, or even with a 
common basket, and after being scoured and boiled 
