428 



( YPRINID.E. 



surrounding any small pool, known to contain some, with a 

 bank of clay, and then making sure of them by lading out 

 the water. 



Mr, Booth, in his Analytical Dictionary, considers that 

 our term Loche is derived from the French looker, to be 

 uneasy; alluding to the restless habits of the species of this 

 genus, and their almost constantly moving from place to 

 place. They are said to be particularly restless before and 

 during stormy weather, and have been preserved in vessels, 

 like the leach, as living barometers,* from a notion that 

 certain movements and alterations of position or situation 

 indicated particular changes about to take place in the 

 weather. 



The species of this genus are remarkable in having six 

 barbules about the mouth. Fishes thus provided are known 

 to feed at or near the bottom of the water ; and it has 

 been stated in this work, at page 26, that those species 

 which reside constantly so near the bottom as to acquire 

 the name of ground-fish, have a low standard of respiration, 

 and a high degree of muscular irritability. In the animals 

 possessing this duration of the power of muscular contrac- 

 tility, as the Eels, flat-fish, and many others, there is reason 

 to believe there exists also great susceptibility of any change 

 that occurs in the electrical relations of the medium in 

 which they reside ; the restless movements of Eels and 

 other ground-fish during thunder receive at least a proba- 

 ble explanation in the belief that no alteration in the wea- 

 ther takes place without some previous change in the electri- 

 cal condition of the atmosphere, which, by its quality or 

 quantity, may affect the water. 



The Chinese, who breed and rear great quantities of Gold 

 Carp, find that thunder does them harm, and even sometimes 



1 The Lake Loche of the European Continent, Cobitis fossilis of authors, is 

 in an old Continental Naturalist's Miscellany called Thermometrum vivum. 



