LOACHES. 61 



; the following description : " The loach, in its general aspect, has 

 a pellucid appearance : its back is mottled with irregular collec- 

 tions of small black dots, not reaching much below the linea 

 lateralis, as are the black and tail fins : a black line runs from 

 each eye down to the nose ; its belly is of a silvery white ; the 

 upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with 

 six feelers, three on each side : its pectoral fins are large, its 

 ventral much smaller ; the fin behind its anus small ; its dorsal- 

 fin large, containing eight spines ; its tail, where it joins to the 

 tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any taperness, so as to be 

 characteristic of this genus : the tail-fin is broad, and square at 

 the end. From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail it 

 appears to be an active nimble fish."* 



In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did not 

 forget to make some enquiries concerning the wonderful method 

 of curing cancers by means of toads. Several intelligent persons, 

 both gentry and clergy, do, I find, give a great deal of credit to 

 what was asserted in the papers: and I myself dined with a 

 clergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is related is 

 matter of fact ; but, when I came to attend to his account, I 

 thought I discerned circumstances which did not a little invali- 

 date the woman's story of the manner in which she came by her 

 skill. She says of herself " that, labouring under a virulent 

 cancer, she went to some church where there was a vast crowd : 

 on going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergyman ; 



* The species above described is the bearded loach (cobitis barbaiula), a small brook-fish com- 

 mon throughout the country, chiefly inhabiting rivers and streamlets with a gravelly bottom, 

 and found only in running water, where it subsists on aquatic insects, and spawns early in April ; 

 its flesh, though small in quantity, being of good flavour, and by some esteemed a delicacy. 

 There is also another and more local British species, called the groundling loach (C. tcenia) 

 rather smaller and of a more compressed shape, with shorter barbules and a moveable forked 

 spine under each eye ; colour yellowish, inclining to orange, mottled and otherwise marked with 

 brown. This latter resides more in the mud than the common species, and is sometimes fouud in 

 ponds, agreeing more in habit with various exotic kinds, which bury themselves deep in the mud 

 when their haunts are dried up or frozen over, aud there continue till they are again fitted for 

 their reception. Of course these are very tenacious of life, as is the case with eels and all other 

 fishes that keep much to the bottom, all of which are besides remarkable for their extreme sus- 

 ceptibility to atmospheric changes, whence a beautiful continental loach (C-fossilis') is often 

 kept in glasses as a sort of barometer, as leeches sometimes are with us. The loach would seem 

 to have been a plentiful genus at a comparatively early period of the earth's history, fossil re- 

 mains of them (even of the species still existing), being found abundantly in various tertiary 

 localities, a fact at which we are the less surprised when we consider their burrowing habits ; for 

 it is only necessary to suppose that the return of the water to their temporarily dry haunts is 

 accompanied, as it often must be, particularly in hot climates where the powers of all nature are 

 so energetic, with a mass of gravel and stones of considerable thickness, and we at once perceivt 

 how they must frequently become buried in the earth to such a depth as to be equally beyond 

 the power of escape and the chance of decomposition. In hot climates the ponds and large 

 sheets of water caused by the rainy season are found to swarm with various fish, which bury 

 themselves deep in the ground when their haunts are drying. ED. 



