CHAP. XVIII.] TKE tfEFTH DAY. 291 



recreation. And in the spring they make of them excellent 

 Minnow-Tansies ; for, being washed w^ll in salt, and their 

 heads and tails cut off, and their guts taken out, and not 

 washed after, they prove excellent for that use; that is, 

 being fried with yolks of eggs, the flowers of cowslips, 

 and of primroses, and a little tansie ; thus used they make 

 a dainty dish of meat. 



The LOACH is, as I told you, a most dainty fish : l he breeds 



The Loach. 



and feeds in little and clear swift brooks or rills, and lives 

 there upon the gravel, and in the sharpest streams : he grows 

 not to be above a finger long, and no thicker than is suitable 

 to that length. This Loach is not unlike the shape of the 

 eel : he has a beard or wattels like a barbel. He has two 

 fins at his sides, four at his belly, and one at his tail ; he is 

 dappled with many black or brown spots ; his mouth is 

 Barbel-like under his, nose. This fish is usually full of eggs 

 or spawn, and is by Oesner, and other learned physicians, 

 commended for great nourishment, and to be very grateful 

 both to the palate and stomach of sick persons. He is to 

 be fished for with a very small worm at the bottom ; for he 



1 The term Loach, or Loche, is said to be derived from the French 

 locker, "to be uneasy," alluding to the restless habits of the species of this 

 genus, and their almost constantly moving from place to place. The 

 Loach has six barbules about the mouth; and fish thus provided are 

 known to feed at or near the bottom of the water. The flesh is accounted 

 excellent and delicate food ; and Linnaeus says that Frederick I. thought 

 so highly of them, that he had them brought from Germany and natu- 

 ralized in his own country. They are extremely susceptible of electrical 

 changes in the atmosphere, always indicating the approach of storms 

 by extreme restlessness ; on which account they have sometimes been 

 preserved in glass vessels, like the leach, as living barometers. A 

 continental naturalist calls it Therinometrum viviiin. See Yarrell. ED. 



u 2 



