“ SUN-SPEARING.” 123 
and for this reason are objected to by some squeamish 
epicures. In Ireland the same animals are openly 
charged with milking cows at night; or what is 
worse, permit their form and fleetness to be assumed 
by witches for this reprehensible practice. While I 
write, a company of French gourmands may be seated 
round a table, and regaling on a ré¢é of horse-flesh! 
When once men start to be epicures and philanthro- 
pists, there is no telling to what regimen or laws 
they may at last subject us. 
It is time, however, to inform a censorious world 
that there is a large class of eels which never fre- 
quent the vile places, or practise the vices imputed 
to other members of the family. Specifically, per- 
haps, they are identical with their snig relatives ; but 
morally and esthetically speaking they are a totally 
different animal. Just as comparative anatomists 
have discovered that there is one variety of the 
human race which excels all others in beauty and 
intelligence, so should I insist wpon the existence of 
a “Circassian type” amongst eels. To the Great 
Lake Eel alone this pre-eminence properly belongs. 
The lake itself, to be worthy of such an inhabitant, 
aust possess some corresponding qualities. Without 
availing myself of the technical repertory of the 
geologists to describe it, I would say that it should 
be at least four or five miles long “as the crow flies ;” 
its sides rock and shingle; and its bottom for the 
