STICKLEBACKS. 



* 



without any reason ; for the common snake (coluber 

 natrix) delights much to sport in the water, per- 

 haps with a view to procure frogs and other food. 

 I cannot well guess how you are to make out 

 your twelve species of reptiles 1 , unless it be by the 

 various species, or rather varieties, of ouFI&cerfa*, 

 of which Ray enumerates five. I have not had 

 opportunity of ascertaining these, but remember 

 well to have seen, formerly, several beautiful green 

 lacerti on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in 

 Surrey ; and Ray admits there are such in Ireland. 



XVIII. 



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 I am able. 



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

 but could find no such fish as the gasterosteus pungi- 

 tius ; 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 bull-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-morning morning. I gave 



1 Dr. Fleming enumerates just twelve species, of which 

 one, the Natrix Dumfrisiensis, seems to be of very dubious 

 authority as a species. I think it very probable that there 

 may be more than one species of lacerta yet undiscovered, 

 which will make up the number. W. J. 



