LOACH. 377 



of clay, and tlien making sure of tlicm by lading out the 

 water. 



Mr. Booth, in his Analytical Dictionary, considers that 

 our term Loche is derived from the French locher, 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 22, 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 contracti- 

 lity, 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 probable 

 explanation in the belief that no alteration in the weather 

 takes place without some previous change in the electrical 

 state of the atmosphere, which, by quality or quantity, may 

 affect the water. 



The Chinese, who breed and rear great quantities of 



* The Lake Loche of the European Continent, Cobitisfossilis of authors, 

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



