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. 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 bull's
heads; but I could produce 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 town, and
procured several diving 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 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
taperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus: the tail-fin is
broad, and square at the end.
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