134 
EEL. 
mains concealed in its hole beneath the banks, or 
buried in the mud at the bottom of the river, from 
whence it wanders in the night in search of prey ; 
and has been known to quit its native element and 
creep along the meadows, feeding on the snails 
which it finds in its passage. It is very voracious, 
and destroys vast numbers of the fry of other fish. 
Eels are viviparous, and produce their young 
about the end of summer. They are said to de- 
scend for this purpose into the sea ; and to take the 
opportunity of the most obscure nights, and when 
the rivers are flooded by accidental rains, to seek 
the ocean. The young fry begin to return into the 
fresh water about the end of January, and continue 
their passage for the three following months, during 
which time they are taken in the river Arno by 
millions, but of so small a size that a vast number 
of them goes to the pound. The circumstance of 
their migration was observed by Dr. Anderson with- 
out his being able to account for it. In his publica- 
tion called The Bee, we find the following passage : 
“ Having occasion to be once on a visit at a 
friend’s house on Dee-side* in Aberdeenshire, I 
often delighted to walk by the banks of the river : 
I one day observed something like a black string 
moving along the edge of the river in shoal water. 
Upon closer inspection I discovered that this was 
a shoal of young eels, so closely joined together as 
to appear, on a superficial view, one continued body 
moving briskly up against the stream. To avoid 
