OF SELBORNE 43 



sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in Surrey ; and Ray admits there 

 are such in Ireland. 



LETTER XVIII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, July 27, 1768. 

 DEAR SIR, 



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 gasterostem pungitius : l he found the 

 gasterosteus aculeatus' 2 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 3 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 specimens 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 took 

 the following description : " The loach, in it's general aspect, has 

 " a pellucid appearance : it's back is mottled with irregular col- 

 lections of small black dots, not reaching much below the 

 " linea lateralis, as are the back and tail fins : a black line runs 

 " from each eye down to the nose ; it's belly is of a silvery white ; 

 "the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded 



1 [Ten-spined stickleback.] 



2 [Three-spined stickleback.] 



3 [Peter Mazell, the engraver of the plates in Pennant's " British Zoology," and 

 of three of those in the original edition of this work, namely the two of the church 

 and that of the Plestor. Bell.] 



