ualities at the outset of his career.
His earliest pieces are probably those in which he more faithfully
reproduced Rembrandt's peculiarities. Exclusively his is a tinge of
green in shadows marring the harmony of the work, a certain gaudiness of
jarring tints, uniform surface and a touch more quick than subtle.
Besides the pictures already mentioned we should class amongst early
productions on this account the "Woman taken in Adultery," at Amsterdam;
"Anna presenting her Son to the High Priest," in the Louvre; the
"Epiphany," at Turin; and the "Circumcision," at Cassel. Eeckhout
matriculated early in the Gild of Amsterdam. A likeness of a lady at a
dressing-table with a string of beads, at Vienna, bears the date of
1643, and proves that the master at this time possessed more imitative
skill than genuine mastery over nature. As he grew older he succeeded
best in portraits, a very fair example of which is that of the historian
Dappers (1669), in the Stadel collection. Eeckhout occasionally varied
his style so as to recall in later years the "small masters" of the
Dutch school. Waagen justly draws attention to his following of Terburg
in "Gambling Soldiers," at Stafford House, and a "Soldiers'
Merrymaking," in the collection of the marquess of Bute. A "Sportsman
with Hounds," probably executed in 1670, now in the Vander Hoo gallery,
and a "Group of Children with Goats" (1671), in the Hermitage, hardly
exhibit a trace of the artist's first education. Amongst the best of
Eeckhout's works "Christ in the Temple" (1662), at Munich, and the
"Haman and Mordecai" of 1665, at Luton House, occupy a good place.
Eeckhout died at Amsterdam on the 22nd of October 1674.

EEL. The common freshwater eel (Lat. _anguilla_; O. Eng. _oel_) belongs
to a group of soft-rayed fishes distinguished by the presence of an
opening to the air-bladder and the absence of the pelvic fins. With its
nearest relatives it forms the family _Muraenidae_, all of which are of
elongated cylindrical form. The peculiarities of the eel are the
rudimentary scales buried in the skin, the well-developed pectoral fins,
the rounded tail fin continuous with the dorsal and ventral fins. Only
one other species of the family occurs in British waters, namely, the
conger, which is usually much larger and lives in the sea. In the conger
the eyes are larger than in the eel, and the upper jaw overlaps the
lower, whereas in the eel the lower jaw projects beyond the upper. Both