Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives 

 of China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled 

 to our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast in 

 our ponds and stews. Linnasus ranks this species of 

 fish under the genus of cyprinus, or carp, and calls it 

 Cyprinus auratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very 

 fanciful way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be 

 blown with a large hollow space within, that does not 

 communicate with it. In this cavity they put a bird 

 occasionally; so that you may see a goldfinch or a 

 linnet hopping as it were in the midst of the water, 

 and the fishes swimming in a circle round it. The 

 simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable and pleas- 

 ant ; but in so complicated a way they become 

 whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection 

 due to him ** who loves to vary every single thing 

 prodigiously " — 



" Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam." 



(HoR. Ars. Poet. 29.) 



LETTER XCIX. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



I THINK I have observed before, that much the 

 most considerable part of the house-martins with- 

 draw from hence about the first week in October ; but 

 28 157 



