n 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 s