LOACH. 



kills them. Pennant says, lobsters fear thunder, and are apt 

 to cast their claws on a loud clap. These effects may be 

 referred to spasmodic action of the muscles induced by elec- 

 trical influence. If fishes of opposite habits, such as surface- 

 swimmers and ground-fish, are put together into the same 

 vessel of water, and a slight galvanic discharge passed through 

 the fluid, the ground-fish with the lowest degree of respiration 

 will be the most agitated. 



Worms and aquatic insects are the food of the Loach. 

 It spawns in March or early in April, and is very prolific, 

 but seldom exceeds four inches in length. The flesh is 

 accounted excellent ; and in some parts of Europe these 

 little fishes are in such high estimation for their exquisite 

 delicacy and flavour, that they are often transported with 

 considerable trouble from the rivers they naturally inhabit to 

 waters contiguous to the estates of the wealthy. Linnaeus, 

 in his Fauna Siicicca, says that Frederick the First, King of 

 Sweden, had them brought from Germany, and naturalized in 

 his own country. 



Some peculiarities in the skeleton of the Loach will be 

 pointed out after the description of its external appearance. 



The length of the head compared with the length of the 

 body alone is as one to four ; the depth of the body is 

 to the length of the head and body, without the caudal 

 rays, as two to eleven ; the nose is rounded, pointing down- 

 wards ; the top of the head flat ; the nostrils double, the 

 most anterior tubular, the second pierced in a depression 

 just before the eye ; the lips large ; the mouth small, placed 

 underneath, the lower jaw the shortest ; the form and situa- 

 tion of the mouth very similar to that of the Barbel, with 

 four Barbules or cirri over it on the upper lip in the front, 

 and one at each lateral angle ; the eye small ; the body elon- 

 gated, smooth, covered with a mucous secretion, rounded in 

 form before the dorsal fin, compressed behind it ; the dorsal 



