The fourth day-continued

Of the Eel, and other Fish that want Scales

Chapter XIII

Piscator

It is agreed by most men, that the Eel is a most dainty fish: the Romans
have esteemed her the Helena of their feasts; and some the queen of
palate-pleasure. But most men differ about their breeding: some say
they breed by generation, as other fish do; and others, that they breed,
as some worms do, of mud; as rats and mice, and many other living
creatures, are bred in Egypt, by the sun's heat when it shines upon the
overflowing of the river Nilus; or out of the putrefaction of the earth,
and divers other ways. Those that deny them to breed by generation, as
other fish do, ask, If any man ever saw an Eel to have a spawn or melt ?
And they are answered, That they may be as certain of their breeding as
if they had seen spawn; for they say, that they are certain that Eels have
all parts fit for generation, like other fish, but so small as not to be
easily discerned, by reason of their fatness; but that discerned they may
be; and that the He and the She Eel may be distinguished by their fins.
And Rondeletius says, he has seen Eels cling together like dew-worms.

And others say, that Eels, growing old, breed other Eels out of the
corruption of their own age; which, Sir Francis Bacon says, exceeds not
ten years. And others say, that as pearls are made of glutinous
dewdrops, which are condensed by the sun's heat in those countries, so
Eels are bred of a particular dew, falling in the months of May or June