Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/270

258 to cover their eels with sand to hide the caudal pulsations. Dr. Marshall Hall, who in 1831 discovered this secondary heart of the eel, says of it that "the action of this caudal heart is entirely independent of the pulmonic heart; while the latter beats sixty the former beats one hundred and sixty times in a minute. It continues for a very long time after the influence of the pulmonic heart is entirely removed." It is probably owing to this caudal heart that the eel's tail is so highly sensitive and so strong. Eels can almost use their tails like hands; as, for instance, if confined to a tank or bucket, they will grasp the edge with this hand-like tail, and by its help lift themselves bodily over. Eels are very clean feeders; if possible, they like their food alive, and in all cases it is most essential that it should be fresh. Even the slightest taint is too much for their keen sense of smell and taste. They are sometimes seen cropping the leaves of water-cresses, and other aquatic plants, as they float about in the water; but as a rule their food is altogether animal. They are immense devourers of spawn of all kinds of fish. There are certain well-known spawning-grounds in the Norfolk Broads, where the roach and bream collect in vast numbers to spawn in the spring. To these grounds the eels follow in hundreds. Mr. Davies, in his pleasant book on "Norfolk Broads and Rivers," speaks of this habit of the eels, and adds: "You can hear the eels sucking away at the spawn in the weeds; and they gorge themselves to such an extent that they will lie motionless on their backs on the gravel, with distended stomachs; and when caught by the bab they will frequently die during the night, instead of living for days, as an eel will otherwise do in a boat."

There are a good many ways of catching eels; the commonest, of course, being by the eel-bucks which are so often to be met with on the Thames. Eel-bucks that are intended to catch the sharp-nosed or frog-mouthed eels are set against the stream, and are set at night, as those two descriptions of eels feed and run only at night. The snig-eel, which is chiefly found in Hampshire, feeds by day; and fishermen have found by experience that snigs are only taken in the eel-bucks if they are set with the stream, instead of against it. In Norfolk, where immense quantities of eels are caught every year, the capture is mostly effected by eel-sets, which are nets set across the stream, and in which the sharp-nosed eel is the one almost invariably taken. Besides these eel-sets, however, the Norfolk Broadmen also fish for eels with "babs," which can hardly be called sport in any sense of the term. The "bab," or "clod," as it is sometimes called, is a number of lob-worms threaded on pieces of worsted, and all tied up in a bunch not unlike a small mop. The bab is then tied on to the end of a cord attached to a stout pole. The eel's teeth get entangled in the worsted as soon as he attempts to take the bab, and he can then be lifted out of the water either into the boat if the angler be in one, or else