The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-19
QUEER FACTS ABOUT EE1.s.


 Il
 They are Dug Out of the Ground as Well as Fished For--Long Journeys They Make Underground as Well as Over the Land-Taken in Germany by Ploughing-The Various Traps in Which They Are Caught.
 Eels hibernate; they burrow In the mud in the fall and stay there until spring. A great many eels go up the creek intersecting salt meadows and burrow in the mud of the meadows. The banks of these creeks may be little mud bluffs from one to three feet high. The eel strikes right into the face of 8 bluff, and bores it's way into the mud of the meadow. With it's sharp pointed head, and body but little greater in di- ameter, it makes it's way without ditfl- culty. and 1t may go five or six hum dred feet in from the bank, Keeping about on 8 level with the point at which it entered, and being only few feet below the surface of the meadow, however far it may have come from the bank of the creek. Other eels follow In for a greater or less distance along the borings made by the first ones. While the opening may have been partly, perhaps almost wholly, closed after the passage of the first eels, it is easier to follow them than to bore through the solid mud.
 The cells, after they have started in from the bank, may spread out over the meadow with @ comparatively even distribution, or, attracted to certain I>xrt I, 1sti of moisture there found, or by some other special feature of the mud, they may gather in larger numbers within limited areas. When great number of eels have congregated in one spot in a, salt meadow, forming sort of pock- ct CT mat of cells, they make, mixed with the mud, a mass slightly more elastic than the unbrol1en mud sur rounding. The surface above them IS more yielding to the tread, and to the fisherman familiar with meadow char acteristics the elasticity caused by the presence of eels is easily distinguished from the sponginesS of an ordlnary so1t spot. A fisherman walking across a salt meadow might come across a pocket or mass of cells by accident If he were searching for eels and they were not in sufficient quantities to re- veal their presence as he walked, then he would halt at places likely to con- tain eels in numbers, and test the ground by jumping on it. He could tell by the manner and degree in which the sod gave under his feet whether there were eels there and whether there were enough of them to pay for digging
 In fishing for cells on the salt mead ows the great thing, of course, is to To- cate the eels. After that everything is easy. A section of the sod is cut out, and the eels are simply speared out of the mud with an ordinary eel spear They are rarely more than three or four feet below the surface.
 Sometimes in digging draining ditch es in salt meadows in the hibernating season great quantities of eels are dug up with the mud.
 In bays having a sandy bottom there are sometimes pockets or depressions in which mud collects. These pockets nav be three or four or perhaps six feet deep, and from @ quarter of an acre to two or three acres in extent. AS the winter approaches eels seek these mud spots in which to bury themselves till spring The fisherman who lives on the shore knows the adja- cent ground under water practically as well as he knows the ground on shore. He knows every one of these mud spots. and by taking ranges on the shore. he can locate any of them in winter when the bay is frozen over with the same accuracy as in summer, when he might be able to see them un- yXYl, hoy iq with ice the fisherman who knows its waters does not go out and cut holes and spear at random with the hope of finding cells, but he knows exactly where to go, and he goes straight there with undertaking certainty
 Having arrived at the spot. the fish, errnan, with an axe, cuts hole in the ice, maybe a. foot or foot and a half \ in diameter.
 The piece thus cut out he slaoves un- der the ice. The water may be here five or six feet deep, and the mud as much more. The fishermen spears out all the eeIs directly below, and then he Sakes all he can get by spearing all around diagonally as far as he can reach. When he lifts his spear out of Hhe water, he frees the eels from it by pushing it from him along on the sur face of the ice. Though thus left on the ice, the released cells do not escape. Tn two minutes they are frozen stiff as sticks. If the fisherman doesn't get eeIs enough through one hole, he cuts another. Sometimes many holes are cut, and there are many fishermen at work at the same time scattered over the frozen surface.
 When the eels come out of their wtr1- ter quarters in the spring people begin to bob for them. To make the famil- iarly known bob the fisherman takes a piece of stout linen thread ten or fif- teen feet long, at one end of which he ties a little piece of wood to keep the worms from slipping off as he strings them. He ties the other end of the thread to knitting needle which is to be used in stringing the worms. The worms are strung head first. When Hhe thread is full the little stick is talk en off and the two ends of the thread are tied together. Then. held together
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