THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
LETTER XVIII. 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 
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 w^anted 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 pungitms : he found the Gaster- 
osteiis aculeatns in plenty. This morning, in a basket, I packed 
a little earthen pot fall of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, 
male and female ; the females big with spawn : some lamperns ; 
some bullheads ; 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. I gave some 
directions in a letter to what particulars the engraver should 
be attentive. 
Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable 
distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that tov^n, and 
procured several living specimens of loaches, which he brought, 
safe and brisk, in a glass decanter. They were taken in the 
gullies that were cut for watering the meadows. From these 
fishes (which measured from two to four inches in length) I 
took the following description : — " The loach, in its general 
aspect, has a pellucid appearance ; its back is mottled with irre- 
gular collections of small black dots, not reaching much below 
the linea lateralis, as are the back and tail fins : a black line 
runs from each eye down to the nose ; its belly is of a silvery 
white ; the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is sur- 
rounded with six feelers, three on each side ; its pectoral fins are 
large, its ventral much smaller ; the fin behind its anus small ; 
^ Mr. Peter Mazel was the engraver of Pennant's plates. 
