“ SUN-SPEARING.” 121 
win the smiles of the adepts in special departments 
of our art; but, after running over the whole “chro- 
matic scale” of the gentle craft, from its highest to 
its lowest responses, I have arrived at the bold con- 
viction that a new note may be introduced into the 
“harmonic circle” of its attractions. To borrow an 
illustration from the same source, when Guido Are- 
tino and his successors completed the musical scale 
by the addition of a seventh, there were doubtless 
many persons at the time to whose ears the innova- 
tion sounded superfluous and discordant. An attempt 
to place SUN-SPEARING amongst the resources of the 
fisherman’s art may, I fear, be exposed to a similar 
reception. But such has ever been the lot of the pre- 
cursors of progress. First in the ranks, they are sure 
to receive the arrows of the opposing crowd. I con- 
sole myself, therefore, by the reflection, that the 
philanthropist who would shrink from this kind of 
martyrdom is quite unworthy of his mission. 
The popular estimate of eels, I am sorry to say, 
is at. par with the prevailing sentiments respect- 
ing the barbarous weapon with which they are too 
often tormented. The naturalists, from whom one 
might expect fair play, are hardly less unjust. They 
all continue the repulsive name of Anguilla in their 
systems, as if they really believed that eels had any- 
thing to do with serpents, or that they were included 
in the malediction pronounced upon the latter. 
