EELS. 277 
ones, averaging a pound weight each, and some 
even reaching four or five pounds. 
Eels are caught also by osier baskets called 
leaps or grigs^ sunk in different parts of the 
stream. A new basket is never entered until it 
has been some weeks in the water, the smell of 
the wicker being, as is supposed, disagreeable 
to the fish. They bite freely at the hook ; the 
best bait being small gudgeons, minnows, or 
sticklebacks, as being more easily gorged than 
larger fish, which the Eels suck off the hooks. 
The efficiency of .the bait is increased by its 
being first dried by exposure to the air, as it 
is then less liable to be sucked off in fragments 
by the small fry. Larger Eels are taken with 
single hooks, than with forty or fifty hooks on 
a long line across the stream, because the best 
Eels swim near the bank. 
In the Thames, during the spring months. Eels 
are taken abundantly by laying night-lines, but 
the mass of weeds that springs up from the bot- 
tom as the summer advances, necessitates the 
discontinuance of that mode of fishing ; and the 
delicious Eel-pies, so celebrated in the neighbour- 
hood of Hampton and Twickenham, are chiefly 
supplied from the canals of Holland, whence 
they are imported much cheaper than they can 
be caught even in the vicinity of the Eel-pie 
houses.” 
During the season of its activity the Eel is 
a voracious feeder. Aquatic insects and their 
larvae, Crustacea and mollusca, the spawn of fishes, 
and even fishes themselves, are devoured by them. 
Mr. Yarrell says that the Eel will attack large 
Carp, seizing them by the fins, though unable 
