378 
The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeare's Time . 
these fish there taken. Young eels are called elvers in 
the neighbourhood of that river ( Yarrell , vol. ii. p. 294). 
As at this period naturalists were of opinion that eels 
were without scales, they were included among the for¬ 
bidden articles of food among the Jews; fortunately for 
those who like this fish, this restriction has been removed 
by later investigations. 
The conger was considered to be only a large-sized 
eel, or rather a fresh-water eel that had gone to the sea 
and remained there long enough to extend its dimensions, 
whereas the two species are now found to be perfectly dis¬ 
tinct. Carew, in his list of fish found on the Cornish 
coast, more correctly divides eels into two kinds— 
“the one valsen , of best taste, coming from the fresh rivers, when 
the great rain floods after September do break their beds, and carry 
them into the sea: the other, bred in the salt water, and called 
a conger eel , which afterwards, as his bigness increaseth, ventnreth out 
into the main ocean, and is enfranchised a burgess of that vast common¬ 
wealth.” (Survey of Cornwall , p. 97.) 
Fuller assigns the palm to Cambridgeshire for the 
production of eels— 
“ which, though they be found in all shires in England, yet are most 
properly treated of here, as most, first, and best; the courts of the kings of 
England being thence therewith anciently supplied. I will not engage 
in the controversy, whether they be bred by generation as other fish j. 
or equivocally, out of putrefaction; or both ways, which is most prob¬ 
able ; seeing some have adventured to know the distinguishing marks 
betwixt the one and the other. I know the silver eels are generally 
preferred, and I could wish they loved men but as men love them, that 
I myself might be comprised within the compass of that desire.” 
( Worthies, vol. i. p. 152.) 
Instead of the beef and cheese usually ordered to be 
provided for the repast at the month's mind, which was 
the thirtieth day after a funeral, a testator of the time of 
Henry VIII. ordains that eel pies shall be substituted in 
the event of his month’s mind falling in Lent, or on a 
