CHAP. xvi. KKMOWZS TO PETEKHEAD. 251 



search that has been done and carried on in foreign 

 countries."* 



As constant movement from place to place seems tc 

 be the rule of the Bevenue Service, Mr. Peach left Fowey 

 in 1849; and this time he was sent to a far-distant 

 place to Peterhead, in the north-east of Scotland. The 

 removal cost him a great deal of money. His own 

 expenses were paid, but he had to remove his wife and 

 family at his own expense. Yet it was a promotion in 

 the service. He was now Comptroller of Customs. The 

 dignity of the appellation was much greater than the 

 advance of salary, which was only 20 a year. Still 

 it was a promotion, and it might lead to better fortune. 



At Peterhead, as in Norfolk, Devonshire, and Corn- 

 wall, Mr. Peach went on with his study of zoology 

 and geology. He added to the list of British fishes, 

 Yarrell's Blenny, Eay's Bream, and the Anchovy, 

 which had not before been known to inhabit the seas 

 which wash the north-eastern coast of Scotland. He 

 also devoted much attention to the nest-building habits 

 of certain sea shells and fishes. " At Peterhead," says Pro- 

 fessor Geikie, " he made himself intimately acquainted 

 with the family arrangements of that rather fierce- 

 looking little fish, the fifteen-spined stickle-back (Gaster- 

 osteus spinachia). In a rocky pool he discovered a 

 colony of them, and learnt how they built their nests 

 and deposited their ova. He watched the hatching 

 and growth of the young until the whole colony, young 



* Sixty -Fourth Annual Report of the Royal Geological Society yf 

 Cornwall. President's Address, p. xix. Plymouth, 1877. 



