LETTER XVIII 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, July 2^tk, I768. 1 



DEAR SIR, I received your obliging and communicative 

 letter of June the 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentle- 

 man'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 evening ; so I hope Mazel will have 

 them fresh and fair to-morrow morning. 2 I gave some 

 directions, in a letter, to what particulars the engraver 

 should be attentive. 3 



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

 reasonable distance of Ambresburyf I sent a servant over to 

 that town, and procured several living specimens of loaches, 



1 Actual date, July 25, 1768, [R. B. S.] 



2 In the original letter the passage reads as follows : "As the coach goes every 

 day from Alton to London, I think that fish sent in wet moss by that conveyance 

 will arrive very fresh in town : therefore I intend to procure the fishes of our 

 streams, and will send them up to Mr. Mazel by means of my Brother, who will 

 order him to engrave them as you desire." [R. B. S.] 



3 Peter Mazell was the engraver of the plates in Pennant's works, and engraved 

 some of the plates for Gilbert White's original edition of "Selborne." [R. B. S.] 



4 Amesbury. [R. B. S.] 



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