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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: 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
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