Eels live eight2462 years; they are able to survive out of water as much as six days,2463 when a north-east wind blows; but when the south wind prevails, not so many. In winter,2464 they cannot live if they are in very shallow water, nor yet if the water is troubled. Hence it is that they are taken more especially about the rising of the Vergiliæ,2465 when the rivers are mostly in a turbid state. These animals seek their food at night; they are the only fish the bodies of which, when dead, do not float2466 upon the surface.

(22.) There is a lake called Benacus,2467 in the territory of Verona, in Italy, through which the river Mincius flows.2468 At the part of it whence this river issues, once a year, and mostly in the month of October, the lake is troubled, evidently by the constellations2469 of autumn, and the eels are heaped together2470 by the waves, and rolled on by them in such astonishing multitudes, that single masses of them, containing more than a thousand in number, are often taken in the chambers2471 which are formed in the bed of the river for that purpose.