EDWY, King of England, son of Ed mund I., succeeded his uncle Edred in 955. Taking part with the secular clergy against the monks, he incurred the confirmed enmity of the latter. The papal party, headed by Dunstan, was strong enough to excite a rebellion, by which Edwy was driven from the throne to make way for his brother Edgar. He died in 959, being probably not more than 18 or 19 years old.
EEL, the general name of a family of teleostean fishes belonging to the apodal section of the Malacopterygii. They be long to various genera. The genus An guilla is characterized by its serpent like elongated body, by the absence of ventral fins, and the continuity of the dorsal and anal fins round the extremity of the tail. The dorsal fin commences half-way between the head and the anal fin, and the lower jaw projects beyond the upper. In the genus Cower, which is conclusively marine, the dorsal fin commences above the pectoral, and the upper jaw is the longer. The smoothness of the body—the scales be ing inconspicuous—and the serpentine movements of eels are proverbial. The
conger and at least three other species— the sharp-nosed, the broad-nosed, and the snig—belong to Great Britain. The species of the genus Anguilla, which are both freshwater and marine, seldom ex ceed 30 inches in length.
In England river eels are caught in great numbers by means of eelbucks or eelpots. A kind of trident is used also for taking them, called an eelspear. Eels avoid cold, and frequently migrate in winter to the mud or brackish water estuaries where the temperature is higher. They have even been met with in large numbers performing migra tions on land, mostly intervening necks of soil covered with damp grass. Some eels spawn in the estuaries of rivers, and immense numbers of the young eels pass up the streams in spring, their passage in England being called the eel fare.