A FEW WORDS ABOUT EELS.

No inhabitant of the deep has attracted more notice, from its natural character and habits, than the eel. It is associated in our minds with our earliest attempts to gain a knowledge of the "gentle art;" and there are few persons who have not some lively recollections of their fishing exploits in securing this slippery and troublesome customer. It is not at all improbable that the serpentine form of the eel may have added to the singular interest which has attached to it, particularly since the commencement of the Christian era. Its resemblance to the serpent tribe has, no doubt, tended to deepen the dramatic power and interest of many legends about this fish, which are current both on the continent and in this country.

Respecting the generation of the eel, there have been the wildest and most ridiculous notions. One ancient author supposed that eels were born of the mud; another, that they were produced from particles scraped from the bodies of large eels when they rubbed themselves against stones; that they grew out of the putrid flesh of dead animals thrown into the water; from the dews which cover the earth in spring and summer; from water, and so forth. Among modern writers, we have the same confusion of theories. There is a popular notion in many districts of the north of England, that eels are generated from horsehairs deposited in springs and rivulets. A

recent German author mentions that they owe their origin to electrical phenomena; but he is sadly at a loss about substantiating his theory by facts. The great

naturalist, Buffon, is said to have remarked, in the latter part of the last century, at a meeting of French savans, that he considered the question as to the generation of eels to be one of the most puzzling in natural history. The late Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Kay, read a paper to the Royal Society on this subject. He noticed some small eels in the thatch of a cottage; and he endeavoured to establish the proposition that the spawn of the fish had been deposited on the reeds before they were cut, and had been subsequently vivified by the sun's rays.

The gastronomical qualities of the eel have been extolled from the earliest times. It was prohibited, however, as an article of food among the Jews; and the ancient Egyptians, while rejecting it as such, gave it a place among their deities. The Greeks were passionately fond of the fish, and cooked it in every possible fashion, as we find recorded in Athenæus and other classical writers. Archestratus, in his work on gastronomy, says of the eel:

:

I praise all kinds of eels; but for the best
Is that which fishermen do take in the sea
Opposite the Strait of Rhegium,

Where you, Messenius, who daily put

This food within your mouth, surpass all mortals
In real pleasure. Though none can deny
That great the virtue and the glory is
Of the Strymonian and Copaic eels,
For they are large and wonderfully fat;
And I do think, in short, that of all fish
The best in flavour is the noble eel.

Pliny says, there were eels in his day three hundred feet long. In another place, he says that eels live eight years; they are able to survive out of water eight days, when the north-east wind blows; but when the south wind blows, not so many. In winter they cannot live if they are in very shallow water, nor if the water is troubled. Hence it is that they are taken more especially about the rising of the Pleiades, when the rivers are mostly in a turbid state. These fish take their food at night; and they are the only inhabitants of the deep the bodies of which, when dead, do not float on the surface.*

Verrius informs us that formerly the children of the Roman citizens, while wearing the prætexta, or sanatorial gown, were flogged with eel-skins, and that, for this purpose, no pecuniary penalty could by law be inflicted upon them.+

Isidorus, in his Glossary, says, Anguilla is the name given to the ordinary scutica, or whip with which boys are chastised at school.

Rabelais says (Book ii. c. 30), "Whereupon his master gave him a sound lashing with an eel-skin, that his own would have been worth nothing to make bagpipe bags of."

The conger-eel was offered to Neptune and his divine colleagues, as being capable of imparting immortality to those who partook of it; and Macrobius informs us that it was a common saying among the Grecians that the dead would return to life if it were possible for them to taste a morsel of this delicious fish.

* "Nat. Hist.," book 9th.

Another writer tells.

Pliny, book 9th.

us that near Sicyon, a city of the Peloponnesus, there were conger-eels caught of such dimensions as to require a waggon drawn by oxen to carry one of them. Even the head and intestines were eaten, and esteemed delicacies.

of eels.
payments made in eels.

The ancient Anglo-Saxon tribes were passionately fond Grants and charters were often regulated by Four thousand of them were a monks of Ramsay to those of charter, twenty fishermen are

The

yearly present from the Peterborough. In one stated to have furnished sixty thousand eels to the monastery. Eel-dikes are often mentioned in the boundaries of lands belonging to religious establishments. Gauls were great consumers of eels; and among their descendants there are many tenures of land in France stipulating for the payment of rent, and the discharge of stipulated public taxes in eels. In one of the capitularies of Charlemagne we find allusions made to the same subject.

There are several places in England which derive their names from the quantity of eels they formerly produced. Elmore, on the river Severn, and Ellesmere, on the Mersey, were once famous for the production of this fish. The town of Ely, too, is singularized in this way. Fuller, in his Worthies of Cambridgeshire, has the following remark:-"When the priests of this part of the country would still retain their wives in spite of whatever the pope and the monks could do to the contrary, their wives and children were miraculously turned into eels; whence it had the name of Ely. I consider this a lie."

Eude, the celebrated cook to Louis XVI., was known all over Europe for his mode of serving up this fish. He says in his book On Cookery: "Take one or two live eels, throw them into the fire; as they are twisting about on all sides, lay hold of them with a towel in your hand, and skin them from head to tail. This method is decidedly the best, as it is the means of drawing out all the oil, which is unpalatable. Note.Several gentlemen have accused me of cruelty (astonishing!) for recommending in my work that eels should be burned alive. As my knowledge in cookery is entirely devoted to the gratification of their taste, and the preservation of their health, I consider it my duty to attend to what is essential to both. The blue skin and the oil which remain when they are skinned, are highly indigestible. If any lady or gentleman should make the trial of both, they will find that the burnt eels are much healthier; but it is after all left to their choice whether to burn or skin." The consumption of eels, as articles of food, throughout Europe, is prodigious. In London, the number imported, chiefly from Holland, amounts to about ten millions annually; and the fish is met with on the most sumptuous, as well as on the most frugal tables-food alike for the London alderman and the gamin in the streets.

The ancient and modern physicians have dabbled with the eel, as with most other fish, to a great extent. Hippocrates denounces him to all his patients, and particularly to those afflicted with pulmonary consumption. Galen says he is indigestible to weakly people. Rhases and Magninus maintain that his food is dele