LOACHES. 
61 
the following description : " The loach, in its general aspect, has 
a pellucid appearance : its back is mottled with in*egular collec- 
tions of small black dots, not reaching much below the linea 
lateralis, as are the black 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 taperness, 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 enquiries concerning the wonderful 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 invali- 
date the woman's story of the manner in which she came by her 
skill. She says of herself "that, labouring under a virulent 
cancer, she went to some church where there^ was a vast crowd : 
on going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergyman ; 
* The species above described is the bearded loach {cohitis barbatula) , a small brook-fish com- 
mon throujfhout the country, chiefly inhabiting rivers and streamlets with a gravelly bottom, 
and found onlj' in running water, where it subsists on aquatic insects, and spawns early in April ; 
its flesh, though small in quantity, being of good flavour, and by some esteemed a delicacy. 
There is also another and more local British species, called the groundling loach (C. tcenia) 
rather smaller and of a more compressed shape, with shorter barbules and a moveable forked 
spine under each eye ; colour yellowish, inclining to orange, mottled and otherwise marked with 
brown. This latter resides more in the mud than the common species, and is sometimes found iii 
ponds, agreeing more in habit with various exotic kinds, which bury themselves deep in the mud 
when their haunts are dried up or frozen over, and there continue till they are again fitted for 
their reception. Of course these are very tenacious of life, as is the case with eels and all other 
fishes that keep much to the bottom, all of which are besides remarkable for their extreme sus- 
ceptibility to atmospheric changes, whence a beautiful continental loach (€■ fossilis) is often 
kept in glasses as a sort of barometer, as leeches sometimes are with us. The loach would seem 
to have been a plentiful genus at a comparatively early period of the earth's history, fossil re- 
mains of them (even of the species still existing), being found abundantly in various tertiary 
localities, a fact at which we are the less surprised when we consider their burrowing habits ; for 
it is only necessary to suppose that the return of the water to their temporarily dry haunts is 
accompanied, as it often must be, particularly in hot climates where the powers of all nature are 
so energetic, with a mass of gravel and stones of considerable thickness, and we at once perceive 
how they must frequently become buried in the earth to such a depth as to be equally beyond 
the power of escape and the chance of decomposition. In hot climates the ponds and large 
sheets of water caused by the rainy season are found to swarm with various fish, which bury 
themselves deep in the ground when their haunts are drying. — Ed. 
