OF SELBORNE. 103 



LETTER XVIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, July 27, 17C8. 



I RECEIVED your obliging and communicative letter of 

 June the 28th, while I was on a visit at a 'gentleman's 

 house, where I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure 

 to sit down, to return you an answer to many queries, 

 which I wanted to resolve in the best manner that I am 

 able. 



A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but 

 could find no such fish as the Gasterosteus Pungitius : 

 he found the Gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This 

 morning, in a basket, I packed a little earthen pot full 

 of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, male and 

 female ; the females big with spawn : some lamperns ; 

 some bulls-heads; but I could procure no minnows. 

 This basket will be in Fleet Street by eight this even- 

 ing; so I hope Mazel 1 will have them fresh and fair 

 to-morrow morning. I gave some directions, in a letter, 

 to what particulars the engraver should be attentive. 



Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a 

 reasonable distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant 

 over to that town, and procured several living speci- 

 mens of loaches, which he brought safe and brisk in a 

 glass decanter. They were taken in the gullies that 

 were cut for watering the meadows. From these fishes 

 (which measured from two to four inches in length) I 



1 Mr. Peter Mazel [Mazell] was the engraver of the plates of the 

 British Zoology. He was living at the time of the (anticipated) literary 

 death of Pennant, March 1, 1791 ; " and of whose skill and integrity I 

 had always occasion to speak well," remarks his employer in his Literary 

 Life. He also engraved some of the plates for the original edition of this 

 work. E. T. B. 



