136 
EEL. 
poses their endeavours to pass up the stream. In 
the forty-fourth volume of the Philosophical Trans- 
actions Mr. Anderson informs us, that while he 
was viewing the flood-gates belonging to the water- 
works of Norwich, he observed a great number of 
eels sliding up them, and up the adjacent posts, to 
the height of five or six feet above the surface of the 
water. They ascended with the greatest ease, not- 
withstanding the posts were perfectly dry and quite 
smooth. They continued with their heads and 
about half their bodies out of the water, holding them 
against the wood-work for some time before they 
began to climb. When they found that the viscidity 
of their bodies was become sufficiently thick, by 
exposure to the air, to support their weight, they 
began to ascend perpendicularly, and with as much 
apparent ease as if they had been sliding on the 
level ground : this they continued till they had 
completed their task, and got into the dam above. 
In very severe weather, the eels, who suffer from 
the cold, will sometimes shelter themselves in a 
whisp of straw thrown into a pond ; and it is said 
that this method has been occasionally practised to 
catch them. 
A considerable traffic is carried on in the metro- 
polis by the sale of a variety of this fish known by 
the name of grigs : they are caught in the Thames, 
and bite readily at the baited hooks, a great many 
of which are generally lowered at a time, tied up 
in a bunch. But the great eel fisheries are, accord- 
