SELBORNE, _July 27th_, 1768.
Dear Sir,--I received your obliging and communicative letter of June
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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 is 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, she went to some
church where there was a vast crowd; on going into a pew, she was
accosted by a strange clergyman, who, after expressing compassion for her
situation, told her that if she would make such an application of living
toads as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that this
unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single
sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish
under this terrible disorder? Would he not have made use of this
invaluable nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of
publication or other, have found a method of making it public for the
good of mankind? In short, this woman (as it appears to me), having set
up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with
this dark and mysterious relation.
The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance of any
gills; for want of which it is continually rising to the surface of the
water to take in fresh air. I opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found
it full of spawn. Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the
assertion that they are _larvae_, for the _larvae_ of insects are full of
eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last state. The
water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, within
which we keep it in water, and wandering away; and people every summer
see numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched up the dry
banks. There are varieties of them, differing in colour; and some have
fins up their tail and back, and some have not.