TEXCH BAIT FOE PIKE. 



267 



is the story started by Isaac Walton, that the Tench is 

 the X)h3'sician of the pike. 



Brown, in his piscatorial eclogues, has put Isaac 

 "Walton's words into verse as follows : 



" The tencli he spares ; 

 For when by wounds distressed, or sore disease, 

 He courts the salutary fish for ease ; 

 • Close to his scales the land physician glides, 



And sweats the healing balsam from his sides." 



This is a regular case of poetical license, and carries 

 out the idea so well formularised by Horace as follows: 



" Pictoribus atque poetis 

 Quidhbet audendi semper fuit aqua potestas." 



This old story that pike will not eat tench is a 

 delusion. Mr. Higford Burr, of Aldermaston Park, teUs 



TENCH. 



me, " You cannot put a better bait on a trimmer than a 

 young tench. Trout w^ill also eat tench. When draw- 

 ing my pond, I caught a trout betw^een two and three 

 pounds. Out of its stomach I took twenty- two little 

 tench the size of minnows." 



Tench are found in great numbers in Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, in deep, sluggish, muddy waters. 



As regards the food of the tencli, my late friend Mr. 



