OF SELBORNE. 
07 
directions, in a letter, to wliat particulars tlie 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 town, 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 appear- 
ance ; its back is mottled with irregular 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 surrounded with six 
feelers, three on each side ; its pectoral fins are large, its 
ventral much smaller ; the fin behind its anus small ; its 
dorsal fin large, containing eight spines ; its tail, where it 
joins to the tail fin, remarkably broad, without any taper- 
ness, so as to be characteristic of this genus ; the tail fin is 
broad, and square at the end. From the breadth and 
muscular strength of the tail it appears to be an active 
nimble fish." 
In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did 
not forget to make some inquiries concerning the wonder- 
ful method of curing cancers by means of toads. Several 
intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do, I find, give 
a great deal of credit to what was asserted in the papers ; 
and I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to be 
persuaded that what is related is matter of fact ; but, when 
I came to attend to his account, I thought I discerned 
circumstances which did not a little invalidate the woman's 
story of the manner in which she came by her skill. She 
says of herself, ^' that labouring under a virulent cancer, 
^ Mr. Bennett states that Ambresbury had become notorious for its 
loaches, on account of sportsmen there frequently, in frolic, swallowing 
one of them alive in a glass of white wine ; but the fish is by no means 
a local one. It occurs generally throughout the country in brooks and 
rivulets, lurking under stones. — Ed. 
