THE EEL. 
J(>9 
bottom of the river, and is called the bed-eel ; these are 
sometimes roused up by violent floods, and are never found 
at that time with meat in their stomachs. This bears such 
an analogy with the clustering of blindworms in their 
quiescent state, that we cannot but consider it as a further 
proof of partial agreement in the nature of the two genera. 
The ancients adopted a most wild opinion about the ge- 
neration of these fish, believing them to be either created 
from the mud, or that the scrapings of their bodies which 
they left on the stones, were animated, and became young 
eels. Some moderns gave into these opinions, and into 
others that were equally extravagant. They could not 
account for the appearance of these fish in ponds that were 
never slocked with them, and were even so remote as to 
make their being met in such places a phenomenon that 
they could not solve. But there is much reason to believe, 
that many waters are supplied with these fish by the aquatic 
fowl of prey, in the same manner as vegetation is spread 
■by many of the land birds, either by being dropped as they 
carry them to feed their young, or by passing quick through 
their bodies, as is the case with herons ; and such may be 
the occasion of the appearance of these fish in places where 
they were never seen before. As to their immediate gene- 
ration, it has been sufficiently proved to be effected in the 
ordinary course of nature, and that they are viviparous. 
They are extremely veracious, and very destructive to the 
% of fish. 
No fish lives so long out of water as the eel ; it is ex- 
tremely tenacious of life, and its parts will move a consider- 
able time after they are flayed and cut in pieces. 
The eel is placed by Linnanis in the genus of murazna y 
his first of the apodal fish, or such which want the ventral 
fins. 
The eyes are not placed remote from the end of the nose : 
the irides are tinged with red : the under jaw is longer than 
the upper; the teeth are small, sharp, and numerous; be- 
neath each eye is a minute orifice ; at the end of the nose 
two others, small and tubular. 
This fish is furnished with a pair of pectoral fins, rounded 
at their ends. Another narrow fin on the back, uniting with 
that of the tail; and the anal fin joins it in the same man- 
ner beneath. 
Behind the pectoral fins is the orifice to the gills, which 
a, ' e concealed in the skin. 
Eels vary much in their colours, from a sooty hue to a 
Von. II. y 
