© SUN-SPEARING.” 125 
of his natural element cramps his development, or 
vitiates his tastes by impurities. A mass of water, 
boundless perhaps in extent to eel intelligence, affords 
him unlimited scope for exercise, and supplies him 
with an inexhaustible store of wholesome nutriment. 
Responsive to the dignity and fostering impulse of 
local circumstance, he becomes the type, the model 
representative, of his “order.” In this state of perfect: 
equality with his more highly-prized and organised 
companions of the lake, he has left popular notions 
of the economy of eel life far behind. As he flashes 
in brightness and power through the crystal element, 
the common observer would scarcely recognise re- 
lationship or similitude to the semi-amphibious snigs 
of the manor ponds. Like them, however, he hiber- 
nates, for in his highest condition he is still true to 
the instincts of the race. But what a difference be- 
tween the slimy, sulphuretted ooze in which they 
hide their diminished heads, and the pure silt and 
vegetable fibre beds in which their “silver” relative 
takes up his winter's quarters, with pearly shells for 
his pillow, and the white surge of the lake breaking 
in music over his head! Often has our tiny bark 
paused over these winter colonies in the creeks of the 
lake to admire the spiracles of the semi-fiuid mass 
through which he breathed the purest of water. 
Sometimes in spring, according. to the temperature of 
the season, he shakes off his winter lethargy, takes to 
