A third plan for taking eels is by what is termed bobbing, which is best managed in a boat. This is done by taking a quantity of well-scoured lobworms; have a long needle, with three lengths of worsted slightly twisted together; put the needle lengthways through the worms, and draw them down on the worsted. When there is two yards thus prepared, then fold them up in links, and tie them to about two yards of good twine, and make a knot on it eight inches from the worms; and slipping a piece of lead, with a hole in it (weighing from a quarter to three quarters of a pound, according to the current fished in), down the line to the knot; fasten the line to a manageable pole, and let the lead lie on the bottom in thick, muddy water, when the tide runs up strong, or near the mouth of some river. When the eels nibble at the bait, they can be felt; give some little time before it is pulled up, which must be gently until near the surface, and then hoist out quickly. The worsted sticking in the eels’ teeth, prevents their loosening themselves until the line is slackened by throwing them into the boat, or on the ground. So soon as they are disentangled, throw the bait in again. Frequently great quantities are thus caught, especially of grigs. Eels are also to be snared in the same way as the pike, and in the fens numbers are speared by an instrument with three or four forks, or jagged teeth, which is struck at random into the mud. * * * * * The most extraordinary peculiarity in the natural history of the eel, is its double migration, one up and one down rivers, one from and the other to the sea; the first in spring and summer, and the second in autumn or early in winter. The first, of very small eels, which are sometimes not more than two or two and a half inches long; the second, of large eels, which sometimes are three or four feet long, and weigh from ten to fifteen, or even twenty pounds. There is great reason to believe, that all eels found in fresh water are the results of the first migration. They appear in millions, in April and May, and sometimes continue to rise as late even as July and the beginning of August. I remember this was the case in Ireland, in 1823. It had been a cold backward summer, and when I was at Ballyshannon, about the end of July, the mouth of the river, which had been in flood all this month, under the fall, was blackened by millions of little eels, about as long as the finger, which were constantly urging their way up the moist rocks by the side of the fall. Thousands died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder for others to make their way; and I saw some ascending even perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is the energy of these little animals, that they continue to find their way, in immense numbers, to Loch Erne. The same thing happens at the fall of the Bann,