placed under their jaws. They are hardly known to the mere
angler, however, not often biting at his baits, though the
spearer carries home many a mess in the spring. To our village
eyes, these shoals have a foreign and imposing aspect, realizing
the fertility of the seas.

The Common Eel, too, _Muraena Bostoniensis_, the only species of
eel known in the State, a slimy, squirming creature, informed of
mud, still squirming in the pan, is speared and hooked up with
various success. Methinks it too occurs in picture, left after
the deluge, in many a meadow high and dry.

In the shallow parts of the river, where the current is rapid,
and the bottom pebbly, you may sometimes see the curious circular
nests of the Lamprey Eel, _Petromyzon Americanus_, the American
Stone-Sucker, as large as a cart-wheel, a foot or two in height,
and sometimes rising half a foot above the surface of the
water. They collect these stones, of the size of a hen's egg,
with their mouths, as their name implies, and are said to fashion
them into circles with their tails. They ascend falls by clinging
to the stones, which may sometimes be raised, by lifting the fish
by the tail. As they are not seen on their way down the streams,
it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away
and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite
period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms
worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare's description of the
sea-floor. They are rarely seen in our waters at present, on
account of the dams, though they are taken in great quantities at
the mouth of the river in Lowell. Their nests, which are very
conspicuous, look more like art than anything in the river.