ths
(that is to say, the six cold months of the yeer) stir not up and down,
neither in the Rivers nor the Pools in which they are, but get into the
soft earth or mud, and there many of them together bed themselves, and
live without feeding upon any thing (as I have told you some _Swallows_
have been observed to do in hollow trees for those six cold months);
and this the _Eele_ and _Swallow_ do, as not being able to endure
winter weather; for _Gesner_ quotes _Albertus_ to say, that in the yeer
1125 (that years winter being more cold then usual) _Eeles_ did by
natures instinct get out of the water into a stack of hay in a Meadow
upon dry ground, and there bedded themselves, but yet at last died
there. I shall say no more of the _Eele_, but that, as it is observed,
he is impatient of cold, so it has been observed, that in warm weather
an _Eele_ has been known to live five days out of the water. And
lastly, let me tell you, that some curious searchers into the natures
of fish, observe that there be several sorts or kinds of _Eeles_, as
the _Silver-Eele_, and green or greenish _Eel_ (with which the River of
Thames abounds, and are called _Gregs_); and a blackish _Eele_, whose
head is more flat and bigger then ordinary _Eeles_; and also an _Eele_
whose fins are redish, and but seldome taken in this Nation (and yet
taken sometimes): These several kinds of _Eeles_, are (say some)
diversly bred; as namely, out of the corruption of the earth, and by
dew, and other wayes (as I have said to you:) and yet it is affirmed by
some, that for a certain, the _Silver-Eele_ breeds by generation, but
not by Spawning as other fish do, but that her Brood come alive from
her no bigger nor longer then a pin, and I have had too many
testimonies of this to doubt the truth of it.

And this _Eele_ of which I have said so much to you, may be caught with
divers kinds of baits; as namely, with powdered Bief, with a _Lob_ or
_Garden-worm_, with a _Minnow_, or gut of a _Hen_, _Chicken_, or with
almost any thing, for he is a greedy fish: but the _Eele_ seldome stirs
in the day, but then hides himselfe, and therefore he is usually caught
by night, with one of these baits of which I have spoken, and then
caught by laying hooks, which you are to fasten to the bank, or twigs
of a tree; or by throwing a string cross the stream, with many hooks at
it, and baited with the foresaid baits, and a clod or plummet, or
stone, thrown into the River with this line, that