Scene—Leintwardine, near Ludlow.
Time—Beginning of October.

Hal.—You have reached your quarters. Here is your home—a rural, peaceable, and unassuming inn, with as worthy a host and hostess as may be found in this part of the country. The river glides at the bottom of the garden, and there is no stream in England more productive of grayling. The surrounding scenery is not devoid of interest, and the grounds in the distance are covered with stately woods, and laid out (or rather their natural beauties developed) by the hand of a master, whose liberal and enlightened mind even condescended to regard the amusements of the angler; and he could hardly have contributed in a more effectual manner to their comforts, than by placing the good people, who were once his servants, in this comfortable inn.

Phys.—Are we to fish according to any rule, as to quantity or size of fish?

Hal.—You are at perfect liberty to fish as you like; but as it is possible you may catch grayling only of this year, and which are not longer than the hand, I conclude you will return such pigmies to the river, as a matter of propriety, though not of necessity.

Poiet.—This river seems formed of two other streams, which join above our inn. What are the names of its sources?

Hal.—The small river to the left is called the Teme, or Little Teme, and though the least stream, it gives name to the river: the other, and more copious stream, is called the Clun. The Little Teme contains principally trout; the Clun, both trout and grayling: but the fish are more abundant in the meadows, between this place and Downton, than in other parts of the river; for above, the stream is too rapid and shallow to be favourable to their increase; and below, it is joined by other streams, and becomes too abundant in coarse fish.

Poiet.—I cannot understand why the grayling should be so scarce a fish in England. It is abundant in many districts on the continent; but in this island it is found, I believe, only in a few rivers, and does not exist, I think, either in Ireland or Scotland. Yet, being an Alpine fish, and naturally fond of cool water, it might have been expected among the Highlands.

Hal.—I formerly used to account for this, by supposing it an imported fish, and not indigenous; but, in some of my continental excursions, I have seen it living only under such peculiar circumstances, that I doubt the correctness of this my early opinion.

Poiet.—Which was, I conclude, that it was introduced by the monks, in the time when England was under the See of Rome. As a favourite fish of St. Ambrose it was worth cultivating, as well as for its own sake; and I think you have done wrong to relinquish this idea, for, as far as my recollection serves me, the rivers that contain it are near the ruins of great monasteries. The Avon, near Salisbury; the Ure, near Fountain’s Abbey; the Wye, near the great Abbey of Tintern; and, if I am not mistaken, in the lower part of this valley there are the remains of an extensive establishment of friars.

Hal.—But there are rivers near the ruins of some of the most magnificent establishments of this kind in Europe, and those nearest the continent, where the grayling is not found; for instance, in the Stour, at Canterbury. And if the grayling be an imported fish, it is wonderful, that it should not be found in the rivers in Kent, and along the south-west coast of England, as in Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, where the monastic establishments were numerous; and why it should be found in some rivers in the mountainous parts of Wales, as in that near Llan-wrted and the Dee; not near Val Crusis Abbey, but fifteen miles higher up, between Corwen and Bala.

Poiet.—It may have been a fish imported from the continent, and carried to a number of rivers, only a few of which may have suited its habits, and has remained there and multiplied.

Hal.—There may be truth in what you are now imagining, for the grayling requires a number of circumstances in a river to enable it to increase.

Poiet.—What circumstances are these?

Hal.—A temperature in the water which must be moderate—neither too high nor too low. Grayling are never found in streams that run from glaciers—at least near their source; and they are killed by cold or heat. I once put some grayling from the Teme, in September, with some trout, into a confined water, rising from a spring in the yard at Downton; the grayling all died, but the trout lived. And in the hot summer of 1825, great numbers of large grayling died in the Avon, below Ringwood, without doubt killed by the heat in July.

Poiet.—But I have heard of grayling being common in Lapland—at least so says LinnÆus.

Hal.—I think it must be another species of the same genus; the same as Back’s grayling found by Captain Franklin and his companions in North America, and distinguished by a much larger back fin. Having travelled with the fishing-rod in my hand through most of the Alpine valleys in the south and east of Europe, and some of those in Norway and Sweden, I have always found the char in the coldest and highest waters; the trout, in the brooks rising in the highest and coldest mountains; and the grayling always lower, where the temperature was milder: and if in hot countries, only at the foot of mountains, not far from sources which had the mean temperature of the atmosphere,—as in the Vipacco, near Goritzia, and in the streams which gush forth from the limestone caverns of the Nordic Alps. Besides temperature, grayling require a peculiar character in the disposition of the water of rivers. They do not dwell, like trout, in rapid shallow torrents; nor, like char or chub, in deep pools or lakes. They require a combination of stream and pool; they like a deep still pool for rest, and a rapid stream above, and a gradually declining shallow below, and a bottom where marl or loam is mixed with gravel; and they are not found abundant except in rivers that have these characters. It is impossible to have a more perfect specimen of a grayling river than that now running before us, in this part of its course. You see a succession of deep still pools under shady banks of marl, with gentle rapids above, and a long shelving tail, where the fish sport and feed. Should there be no such pools in a river, grayling would remain, provided the water was clear, and would breed; but they cannot stem rapid streams, and they are gradually carried down lower and lower, and at last disappear. You know the Test, one of the finest trout streams in Hampshire, and of course in England; when I first knew this stream, twenty years ago, there were no grayling in it. A gentleman brought some from the Avon, and introduced them into the river at Longstock, above Stockbridge. They were for two or three years very abundant in that part of the river; but they gradually descended, and though they multiplied greatly, there are now scarcely any above Stockbridge. There were, four years ago, many in the river just below; but this year there are very few there, and the great proportion that remains is found below Houghton. I ought to mention, that the water is particularly fitted for them, and they become larger in this river than in their native place, the Avon,—some of them weighing between 3 and 4lbs. The trout, in all its habits of migration, runs upward, seeking the fresh and cool waters of mountain sources to spawn in: the grayling, I believe, has never the same habit of running up stream; I never saw one leaping at a fall, where trout are so often seen. Their large back fin seems intended to enable them to rise and sink rapidly in deep pools; and the slender nature of the body, towards the tail, renders them much more unfit for leaping cataracts than trout and salmon. The temperature of the water, and its character as to still and stream, seem of more importance than clearness; for I have seen grayling taken in streams, that are almost constantly turbid,—as in the Inn and the Salza in the Tyrol. This fish appears to require food of a particular kind, feeding much upon flies and their larvÆ, and not usually preying upon small fish, as the trout. It has a very strong stomach, in texture like that of the gillaroo trout, and is exceedingly fond of those larvÆ which inhabit cases, and are usually covered with sand or gravel. I once caught a grayling in the Wochain Save, that weighed about a pound and a half, the stomach of which equalled in size a very large walnut, and contained some small shells, and two or three white round pebbles as large as small beans. In accordance with their general habits of feeding, grasshoppers are amongst their usual food in the end of summer and autumn; and at all seasons, maggots, upon fine tackle and a small hook, offer a secure mode of taking them,—the pool having been previously baited for the purpose of angling, by throwing in a handful or two a few minutes before.

Poiet.—You just now said, that you thought the Lapland fish, considered by LinnÆus as grayling, was the same as Back’s grayling; but I find, in the Appendix to Captain Franklin’s narration, two graylings described as belonging to the northern regions,—one the Coregonus Signifer, and another, which appears to differ very little from it, except being small in size. This seems to agree as nearly as possible with our grayling, with a difference of at most one spine in the back fin. May not this in fact be the same fish as the grayling of the Alps, only rendered in a succession of generations fit for a colder climate?

Hal.—This is certainly possible: there is no doubt, that, in many successive generations, animals may be fitted to bear changes, which would have destroyed their progenitors. It is said by Bloch, that graylings are found in the Caspian Sea, and in the Baltic,—masses of saline water; though, as I have proved, the grayling of England will not bear even a brackish water, without dying. And notwithstanding the severity of the winter in high northern latitudes, streams under the ice may retain a temperature not much lower than some of the Alpine rivers. I have seen grayling in Carniola, in a source at the hottest season not quite 50°; and as, in large bodies of water, the deepest part, in frost, is generally the warmest—about 40°, the degree at which water is heaviest—I see no reason why grayling may not be habituated to such a temperature—coolness being generally favourable to their existence. But see, the fog which had filled the valley and hid the mountains from our sight is clearing away, and I fear it will be a hot day. Before the sun becomes too bright is the best time for fishing, in such a day as this. As soon as the fog is fairly off, the water-flies will begin to appear, and fish to sport.

Phys.—I see the fog has already disappeared from the deep water in the meadow, where I suppose the warmth of the air from the considerable mass of the water, is greater; and which is further removed from the hills sending down currents of cold air, from the mixture of which with the moist warm air above the river this phenomenon is produced. I see some yellow flies beginning to come out; they have already felt the influence of the warm air: and look! a fish has just risen opposite that bank, and he rises again: let us prepare our tackle.

Poiet.—What flies shall we employ?

Hal.—I recommend at least three; for the grayling lies deeper and is not so shy a fish as the trout; and, provided your link is fine, is not apt to be scared by the cast of flies on the water. The fineness of the link, and of the guts to which your flies are attached, is a most essential point, and the clearer the stream the finer should be the tackle. I have known good fishermen foiled by using a gut of ordinary thickness, though their fly was of the right size and colour. Very slender transparent gut of the colour of the water is one of the most important causes of success in grayling fishing. Let me see your book: I will select a fine stretcher. Now, for the lowest fly, use a yellow-bodied fly, with red hackle for legs, and landrail’s wing: for the second, a blue dun, with dun body; and for the highest, the claret coloured body, with blue wings; and let your first dropper fly be about three feet from the stretcher and from the other dropper, and let the hanging link which attaches them be 3½ inches long.

Phys.—There are several fish rising: I shall throw at that opposite—he appears large.

Hal.—It is a trout and not a grayling.

Phys.—How do you know?

Hal.—By his mode of rising. He is lying at the top of the water, taking the flies as they sail down by him, which a grayling scarcely ever does. He rises rapidly from the bottom or middle of the water, on the contrary—darting upwards, and, having seized his fly, returns to his station. There! a grayling has risen. I do not mean, however, that this habit is invariable; I have sometimes seen trout feed like grayling, and grayling like trout, but neither of these fish emits bubbles of air in rising, as dace and chub do.

Phys.—I have one! He has taken my blue dun, and must be a small one, for he plays with no vigour.

Hal.—He is about ¾lb.—a fish of two years and a half old—very good for the table. I will land him if possible.

Phys.—There! He is off!

Hal.—This happens often with grayling: their mouths are tender, and unless the hook catches in the upper lip, which is rather thick, it is more than an equal chance that the fish escapes you.

Phys.—Here, I have another, that has taken the stretcher, and as it is a larger hook, I hope he may be held. He is likewise a larger fish—but how oddly he spins! This, I suppose, must be owing to his large back fin, by which the stream carries him round. There he is: he has quite twisted my link; it would not be amiss to have swivels for this kind of fishing.

Hal.—It is a fish in good season,—dark above, fair below, and weighs, I should suppose, about 1¼lb.

Phys.—As this is the first grayling I have seen of my own taking, I must measure, weigh, and examine him.

Hal.—We can do this hereafter. See, our fish barrel; he can be kept alive till a more convenient time of the day.

Phys.—I am disposed to gratify my curiosity immediately: for to acquire information is at least as interesting to me as catching fish. I shall kill him by a blow on the head. He is not, I suppose, worth crimping afterwards?

Hal.—Certainly not, at this time; and it is not necessary with a fish of this size, which ought to be fried; but if we catch a large grayling, approaching to 2lbs., he shall be killed, crimped, and boiled, like our Denham trout; you will then find him excellent, and not inferior, in my opinion, to the best perch—more like the most exquisitely tasted of all our fish, the red mullet.

Phys.—Out of the water, this is a handsome fish, broader round the middle, and more hog-backed than the trout, but gracefully tapering towards the tail. The belly, I see, is silvery with yellow; and the pectoral, ventral, and anal fins are almost gold-coloured; the back gray with small black spots, and the back fin of a beautiful bright purple, with black and blue spots. It has likewise an agreeable odour; so that both from its colour and smell it does not seem undeserving the title given it by St. Ambrose, of the flower of fishes. It measures, I find, 14 inches in length; in girth 7½. It weighs 17 ounces. It has 10 spines in the pectoral fin, 23 in the dorsal, 16 in the ventral, 14 in the anal, and 18 in the caudal.

Hal.—Now for its anatomy. Its stomach is very thick, not unlike that of a char or gillaroo trout, and contains flies, gravel, and larvÆ, with their cases. The liver and bowels do not differ much from those of a trout; and the ovaria or roe, with eggs as large as mustard seed, are on each side the air bladder. Though a thicker fish, the grayling does not weigh much more than the trout in proportion to his length: the greater breadth of back is compensated by the more rapid tapering of tail, and a trout in very high season will sometimes equal in weight a grayling of the same length. The ova in this fish, and in the species generally, are very small at this time of the year; but in the beginning of April, the season of their spawning, they become nearly as large as the ova of the trout—of the size of pepper-corns. But I see, Poietes, your rod is in order, and there are many fish rising in this deep pool, some of which are large grayling. The blue dun is on in quantity, and we have both cloud and wind, which half an hour ago we had no right to expect. Let me advise you to use three flies of different shades of the dun: the stretcher, a pale blue with yellow body; the first dropper, a winged fly with dun body; and the third, a similar fly with dark body. There, you see; he rose and refused your stretcher—and again he has a second time refused it. I think the colour of the dubbing is too bright: try a winged fly for the stretcher with a greenish body. Good—he has taken it, and ought to be a large fish. Now we have him: he is at least sixteen inches long, and in good season. Ornither, I advise you to use the same kind of fly, and to put up your tackle precisely in the same way as Poietes has done.

Poiet.—How well they rise! At that moment I had two on my line: one of them is gone, but I hope I shall land the other.

Hal.—Fish with activity while the cloud lasts. I fear the sun is coming out, when it will be more difficult to take fish. I shall try the next pool, and I advise you to follow me and fish by turns,—passing each other, and taking different pools below, and so wend your way downwards, fishing wherever you see fish sporting. There is no better part of the river than that pool below you, and you cannot take a wrong direction. Immediately beyond Burrington Bridge you will find two excellent pools, and I advise you to go no farther down to-day. If you take a fish approaching 2lbs., keep him alive in the fish barrel for crimping; the smaller fish you can kill, and carry with some rushes in your basket; we shall at least be able to send a dish of grayling to the patron of our sport at Downton.

Hal.—Well, gentlemen, I hope you have been successful.

Poiet.—We have had good sport; but I have been for some time reposing on this bank, and admiring the scene below. How fine are these woods! How beautiful these banks! the hills in the distance approach to the character of mountains; and the precipitous cliff, which forms the summit of that distant elevation, looks like a diluvian monument, and as if it had been bared and torn by a deluge, which it had stemmed.

Hal.—It is one of the Clee hills, and its termination is basaltic, and such rocks usually assume such forms. But though this spot is beautiful, to-morrow, I hope to show you a more exquisite landscape,—cliffs and woods, and gushing waters, of a character still more romantic. We will return to our inn by a shorter road; but tell me, have you caught a large fish amongst you, and preserved him for crimping?

Poiet.—We have preserved two fishes in the barrel, but I fear they are much below your proposed size.

Hal.—They are good fish, and of the average size of the large grayling in this stream—16 inches long, and about 1½lb.; they will make a good variety boiled and placed in the middle of the fried fish. And how many have you caught altogether?

Poiet.—I have basketed (to coin a word) three trout and six grayling.

Phys.—And I have taken seven grayling. I caught trout likewise, but, not considering them in proper season, I returned them to the river: but Ornither has been the most successful—he has killed ten grayling.

Hal.—The trout is rarely good in this river—at least I never saw one that cut red, and yet I have taken them in July, when their external appearance was perfect and beautiful; but they have, to my taste, always a flabby and soft character of flesh, and at all seasons here are inferior for the table to grayling; yet they often attain a considerable size. There are few small fish in these streams, and I suppose the grayling, which are most numerous, deprive the trout of their proper share of the food, depending upon larvÆ and flies.

Phys.—As we are walking through these meadows, pray give us some information as to the habits of the grayling, and its localities in England: I have been so much pleased with my sport, that I shall become, with St. Ambrose, a patron of the fish.

Hal.—The habits of the grayling, like those of most other fish, are very simple. He is, I believe, to a certain extent, gregarious—more so than the trout, and less so than the perch, and the usual varieties of the carp species known in England. His form and appearance you have seen. He is as yet scarcely in his highest or most perfect season, which is in the end of November or beginning of December, when his back is very dark, almost black, and his belly and lower fins are nearly gold-coloured; but his brightness, like that of most other fishes, depends a good deal upon the nature of the water: and on the continent I have seen fishes far more brilliantly coloured than in England—the lower part almost a bright orange, and the back fin approaching to the colour of the damask rose, or rather of an anemone. The grayling spawns in April, and sometimes as late as the beginning of May: the female is generally then followed by two or three males. She deposits her ova in the tales of sharp streams, and the males, rubbing against her, shed upon the ova the melt or semi-fluid. I do not know how long a time is required for the exclusion of the young ones; but in the end of July, or beginning of August, they are of the size of sprats, four or five inches long, and already sport merrily at a fly. Though I have often taken grayling in bad season, yet I have rarely observed upon them the same kind of leech,^[7] or louse, which is so often found upon the trout; from which I infer, that they seldom hide themselves, or become torpid in the mud. The grayling hatched in May or June, I conclude, become the same year, in September or October, nine or ten inches long, and weigh from five ounces to half a pound; and the year after they are from twelve to fifteen inches long, and weigh from three-quarters to a pound; and these two sizes, as you have seen, are the fish that most usually rise at the fly. The first size in this river is called shote, which is a Celtic word, I believe, applied likewise in the west of England to small trout. Of their growth after the second year I cannot speak; this must depend much on their food and place of residence. Marsigli says, they do not grow after the third year, and at this age, in Austria, they are sometimes a cubit long; but though I have fished much in that country, I never saw any so long. If they are taken into new and comparatively still water recently made, and where food is plenty, they grow very fast: under these circumstances, I have seen them above 3lbs. In the Test, where, as I mentioned before, the grayling has been only recently introduced, they have sometimes been caught between 3 and 4lbs.—in this river I never took one above 2lbs. but I have heard of one being taken of 2½lbs. The grayling is a rare fish in England, and has never been found in Scotland and Ireland (as Poietes observed before;) and there are few rivers containing all the conditions necessary for their increase. I know of no grayling river farther west than the Avon, in Hampshire: they are found in some of the tributary streams of this river which rise in Wiltshire. I know of no river containing them on the north coast west of the Severn: there are very few only in the upper part of this river, and in the streams which form it in North Wales. There are a few in the Wye and its tributary streams. In the Lug, which flows through the next valley, in Herefordshire, many grayling are found. In the Dee, as I have said before, they are found, but are not common. In Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the Dove, the Wye, the Trent, and the Blithe, afford grayling; in Yorkshire, on the north coast, some of the tributary streams of the Ribble,—and in the south, the Ure, the Wharfe, the Humber, the Derwent, and the streams that form it, particularly the Rye. There may be some other localities of this fish unknown to me; but as I have fished much, and enquired much respecting the places where it is found, I think my information tolerably correct and complete.

Phys.—Is this fish to be fished for in spring?

Hal.—He is to be fished for at all times, for he is rarely so much out of season as to be a bad fish; and when there are flies on the water, he will generally take them: but as the trout may be considered as a spring and summer fish, so the grayling may be considered as a winter and autumnal fish.

Phys.—Of course the grayling is taken in spring with the same imitation of flies as the trout?

Hal.—The same. As far as flies are concerned, these two species feed alike; though I may say, generally, that the grayling prefers smaller flies, and the varieties of the ephemerÆ or phryganeÆ, of the smallest size, form their favourite food. Yet grayling do not refuse large flies; and in the Avon and Test, May flies, and even moths, are greedily taken in the summer by large grayling. Flies, likewise, that do not inhabit the water, but are blown from the land, are good baits for grayling. There is no method more killing, for large grayling, than applying a grasshopper to the point of a leaded hook, the lead and shank of which are covered with green and yellow silk, to imitate the body of the animal. This mode of fishing is called sinking and drawing. I have seen it practised in this river with as much success as maggot fishing; and the fish taken were all of the largest size; the method being most successful in deep holes, where the bottom was not visible, which are the natural haunts of such fish. In the winter, grayling rise for an hour or two, in bright and tolerably warm weather; and, at this time, the smallest imitations of black or pale gnats that can be made, on the smallest sized hook, succeed best in taking them. In March, the dark-bodied willow fly may be regarded as the earliest fly; the imitation of which is made by a dark claret dubbing and a dun hackle, or four small starling’s wing feathers. The blue dun comes on in the middle of the day in this month, and is imitated by dun hackles for wings and legs, and an olive dubbing for body. In milder weather, in morning and evening in this month, and through April, the green tail, or grannom, comes on in great quantities, and is well imitated by a hen pheasant’s wing feather, a gray or red hackle for legs, and a dark peacock’s harle, or dark hare’s ear fur, for the body. The same kind of fly, of a larger size, with paler wings, kills well in the evening, through May or June. The imitation of a water insect called the spider fly, with a lead-coloured body and woodcock’s wings, is said to be a killing bait, on this and other rivers, in the end of April and beginning of May; but I never happened to see it on the water. The dark alder fly, in May and June, is taken greedily by the fish: it is imitated by a dark-shaded pheasant’s wing, black hackle for legs, and a peacock’s harle, ribbed with red silk, for the body. At this season, and in July, imitations of the black and red palmer worms, which I believe are taken for black or brown, or red beetles or cockchaffers, kill well; and, in dark weather, there are usually very light duns on the water. In August, imitations of the house fly and blue bottle, and the red and black ant fly, are taken, and are particularly killing after floods in autumn, when great quantities of the fly are destroyed and washed down the river. In this month, in cloudy days, pale-blue duns often appear; and they are still more common in September. Throughout the summer and autumn, in fine calm evenings, a large dun fly, with a pale yellow body, is greedily taken by grayling after sunset; and the imitation of it is very killing. In the end of October, and through November, there is no fly fishing but in the middle of the day, when imitations of the smaller duns may be used with great success; and I have often seen the fish sport most, and fly fishing pursued with the greatest success, in bright sunshine, from twelve till half-past two o’clock, after severe frosts in the morning; and I once caught, under these circumstances, a very fine dish of fish on the 7th of November. It was in the year 1816; the summer and autumn had been peculiarly cold and wet, and, probably in consequence of this, the flies were in smaller quantity at their usual season, and there was a greater proportion later in the year.

Grayling, if you take your station by the side of a river, will rise nearer to you than trout, for they lie deeper, and therefore are not so much scared by an object on the bank; but they are more delicate in the choice of their flies than trout, and will much oftener rise and refuse the fly. Trout, from lying nearer the surface, are generally taken before grayling, where the water is slightly coloured, or after a flood: and in rain, trout usually rise better than grayling, though it sometimes happens, when great quantities of flies come out in rain, grayling, as well as trout, are taken with more certainty than at any other time;—the artificial fly, in such cases, looks like a wet fly, and allures even the grayling, which generally is more difficult to deceive than trout in the same river.

Phys.—As I was looking into a ditch coming down the river, which is connected with it, I saw a very large eel at the bottom, that appeared to me to be feeding on a small grayling:—are there many of this fish in the Teme, and do they breed here?

Hal.—There are many of this fish in the river; but to your question, do they breed here? I must answer in the negative. The problem of their generation is the most abstruse, and one of the most curious, in natural history; and though it occupied the attention of Aristotle, and has been taken up by most distinguished naturalists since his time, it is still unsolved.

Phys.—I thought there was no doubt on the subject. Lacepede, whose book is the only scientific one on fishes I have read with attention, asserts, in the most unqualified way, that they are viviparous.

Hal.—I remember his assertion, but I looked in vain for proofs.

Phys.—I do not remember any facts brought forward on the subject; but tell us what you think upon it.

Hal.—I will tell you all I know, which is not much. This is certain, that there are two migrations of eels,—one up and one down rivers, one from and the other to the sea; the first in spring and summer, the second in autumn or early winter. The first, of very small eels, which are sometimes not more than two or two and a half inches long; the second, of large eels, which sometimes are three or four feet long, and weigh from 10 to 15, or even 20lbs. There is great reason to believe, that all eels found in fresh water are the results of the first migration: they appear in millions in April and May, and sometimes continue to rise as late even as July and the beginning of August. I remember this was the case in Ireland, in 1823. It had been a cold backward summer, and when I was at Ballyshannon, about the end of July, the mouth of the river, which had been in flood all this month, under the fall, was blackened by millions of little eels, about as long as the finger, which were constantly urging their way up the moist rocks by the side of the fall. Thousands died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder for others to make their way; and I saw some ascending even perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or adhering to some eels, that had died in the attempt. Such is the energy of these little animals, that they continue to find their way, in immense numbers, to Loch Erne. The same thing happens at the fall of the Bann, and Loch Neagh is thus peopled by them: even the mighty Fall of Shaffhausen does not prevent them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where I have seen many very large eels.

Phys.—You have shown, that some eels come from the sea, but I do not think the facts prove, that all eels are derived from that source.

Hal.—Pardon me—I have not concluded. There are eels in the Lake of Neufchatel, which communicates by a stream with the Rhine; but there are none in the Leman Lake, because the Rhone makes a subterraneous fall below Geneva; and though small eels can pass by moss or mount rocks, they cannot penetrate limestone, or move against a rapid descending current of water, passing, as it were, through a pipe. Again: no eels mount the Danube from the Black Sea; and there are none found in the great extent of lakes, swamps, and rivers communicating with the Danube,—though some of these lakes and morasses are wonderfully fitted for them, and though they are found abundantly in the same countries, in lakes and rivers connected with the ocean and the Mediterranean. Yet, when brought into confined water in the Danube, they fatten and thrive there. As to the instinct, which leads young eels to seek fresh water, it is difficult to reason;—probably they prefer warmth, and, swimming at the surface in the early summer, find the lighter water warmer, and likewise containing more insects, and so pursue the courses of fresh water, as the waters from the land, at this season, become warmer than those of the sea. Mr. J. Couch (Lin. Trans. T. xiv. p. 70) says, that the little eels, according to his observation, are produced within reach of the tide, and climb round falls to reach fresh water from the sea. I have sometimes seen them, in spring, swimming in immense shoals in the Atlantic, in Mount Bay, making their way to the mouths of small brooks and rivers. When the cold water from the autumnal floods begins to swell the rivers, this fish tries to return to the sea; but numbers of the smaller ones hide themselves during the winter in the mud, and many of them form, as it were, masses together. Various authors have recorded the migration of eels in a singular way,—such as Dr. Plot, who, in his History of Staffordshire, says, that they pass in the night, across meadows, from one pond to another: and Mr. Arderon (in Trans. Royal Soc.) gives a distinct account of small eels rising up the flood-gates and posts of the water-works of the city of Norwich; and they made their way to the water above, though the boards were smooth planed, and five or six feet perpendicular. He says, when they first rose out of the water upon the dry board, they rested a little—which seemed to be till their slime was thrown out, and sufficiently glutinous—and then they rose up the perpendicular ascent with the same facility as if they had been moving on a plane surface.—(Trans. Abr. vol. ix. p. 311.) There can, I think, be no doubt, that they are assisted by their small scales, which, placed like those of serpents, must facilitate their progressive motion: these scales have been microscopically observed by Lewenhoeck.—(Phil. Trans. vol. iv.) Eels migrate from the salt water of different sizes, but I believe never when they are above a foot long—and the great mass of them are only from two and a half to four inches. They feed, grow, and fatten in fresh water. In small rivers they are seldom very large; but in large deep lakes they become as thick as a man’s arm, or even leg; and all those of a considerable size attempt to return to the sea in October or November, probably when they experience the cold of the first autumnal rains. Those that are not of the largest size, as I said before, pass the winter in the deepest parts of the mud of rivers and lakes, and do not seem to eat much, and remain, I believe, almost torpid. Their increase is not certainly known in any given time, but must depend upon the quantity of their food: but it is probable they do not become of the largest size, from the smallest, in one or even two seasons; but this, as well as many other particulars, can only be ascertained by new observations and experiments. Blotch states, that they grow slowly, and mentions, that some had been kept in the same pond for fifteen years. As very large eels, after having migrated, never return to the river again, they must (for it cannot be supposed that they all die immediately in the sea) remain in salt water; and there is great probability, that they are then confounded with the conger, which is found of different colours and sizes—from the smallest to the largest—from a few ounces to one hundred pounds in weight. The colour of the conger is generally paler than that of the eel; but, in the Atlantic, it is said, that pale congers are found on one side of the Wolf Rock, and dark ones on the other. The conger has breathing tubes, which are said not to be found in the other eel; but to determine this would require a more minute examination than has yet been made. Both the conger and common eel have fringes along the air bladder, which are probably the ovaria; and Sir E. Home thinks them hermaphrodite, and that the seminal vessels are close to the kidneys. I hope this great comparative anatomist will be able to confirm his views by new dissections, and some chemical researches upon the nature of the fringes and the supposed melt. If viviparous, and the fringes contain the ova, one mother must produce tens of thousands, the ova being remarkably small; but it appears more probable, that they are oviparous, and that they deposit their ova in parts of the sea near deep basins, which remain warm in winter. This might be ascertained by experiment, particularly on the coasts of the Mediterranean. I cannot find, that they haunt the Arctic ocean, which is probably of too low a temperature to suit their feelings or habits; and the Caspian and the Black Sea are probably without them, from their not being found in the Volga or Danube; these, being shallow seas, are perhaps too cold for them in winter. From the time (April) that small eels begin to migrate, it is probable that they are generated in winter; and the pregnant eels ought to be looked for in November, December, and January. I opened one in December, in which the fringes were abundant, but I did not examine them under the microscope, or chemically. I trust this curious problem will not remain much longer unsolved.