66 NATURAL HISTORY 



species of reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or 

 rather varieties, of our Lacertce, of which Ray enumerates 

 five. I have not had opportunity of ascertaining these ; 

 but remember well to have seen, formerly, several beautiful 

 green Lacertce on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in 

 Surrey ; 1 and Ray admits there are such in Ireland. 



LETTER XVIII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, July 27, 1768. 



RECEIVED your obliging and communi- 

 cative 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 Gasterosteus pungitius ; he 

 found the Gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. 2 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. The basket will be in Fleet 

 Street by eight this evening; so I hope Mazel 3 will have 

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



1 See Letter XXII. 



2 G. pungitius, the ten-spinecl stickleback, although generally dis- 

 tributed, seems to be nowhere so abundant as the common stickleback, 

 G. aculeatus. ED. 



3 Peter Mazel, the engraver of the plates of Pennant's ki .British 

 Zoology." ED. 



