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At the beginning, a conical bag is woven of pure white silk; you might take it for the initial eel-trap of the Bembeces, only this bag has two openings, a very wide one in front and another, very narrow one at the side. Through the front opening the Stizus provides itself with sand as and when it spends this material on encrusting the interior.
The eel-trap on the old Thames mill stream is imitated in other places where there is no mill. Thus at Mottisfont Abbey on the Test an old mill stream is used to work an hydraulic ram, and also to supply eels for the house; the water is diverted into the eel-trap, and the fish taken at any time.
With its pointed mouth it explores the walls of its chamber. This sign denotes the approach of the time for making the cocoon. 8 AUGUST. During the night the larva has spun its silken eel-trap. It is now encrusting it with grains of sand. Then follow, in due time, the normal phases of the metamorphosis.
Salmon, deer, bears, and wild-fowl are their principal food: of the latter they procure large quantities. Their mode of taking salmon is curious. They build a weir across the stream, having an opening only in one place, at which they fix a basket, three feet in diameter, with the mouth made something like an eel-trap, through which alone the fish can find a passage.
Another dodge for taking eels, which is not in the nature of what is called a "fixed engine," is the movable eel-trap or "grig wheel." It is like a crayfish basket, and is in fact the same thing, only rather larger. They can be obtained from that old river hand, Mr. Bambridge, at Eton, weighted, stoppered, and ready for use, for 7s. 6d. each, and unweighted for 5s.
If the Scolia really works in the same manner, everything is explained: the eel-trap, while still open, enables it to soak with varnish both the inside and the outside of the inner shell, which has to acquire the consistency of parchment; lastly, the cap which completes and closes the structure leaves for the future a circular line capable of splitting easily and neatly.
I am rather interested to see the Bembex and the Tachytes, two workers in the same guild, employ such different methods to achieve the same result. The first begins by weaving an eel-trap of pure silk and next encrusts the grains of sand inside; the second, a bolder architect, is economical of the silk envelope, confines itself to a hanging girdle and builds course by course.
Bambridge says his experience is different, and his "advice to those about to fish" with this kind of eel-trap is suggestive of new ideas about eels.
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