1 88 



The American Ansrler 



has charge of it, than is made by the 

 float, however light it may be. 



" Uncle Thad." Norris, the Walton of 

 America, was very fond of roach-fish- 

 ing. No bright day in winter, forty 

 years ago, found him absent from the 

 old pier at Gray's Ferry bridge, on the 

 Schuylkill river. He fished through 

 the ice, using reversed bristle snoods on 

 a half-dozen hooks, baited with white- 

 wood-worms, and line leaded with half- 

 ounce sinker. So constant was his 

 attendance, and so careless of his per- 

 son when fishing, that he was familiarly 

 called "• Old Mud " by the bridge- 

 tenders and ferry -men. The fishing 

 on Norris' favorite ground is a thing of 

 the past, as it has been entirely 

 destroyed by the coal-tar from the gas- 

 works and oil-refineries which have 

 spoiled the fishing in the tide-water of 

 the Schuylkill. 



The baits used in roach-fishing are 

 as various as those that lure the carp ; 

 they are : earth-worms, barley, soaked 

 wheat, berries, and best of all, writes an 

 English angler, small pieces of the ripe 

 banana, on the point of a No. 12 or 14 

 hook. They certainly rise freely to the 

 artificial fly. 



The United States Fish Commission 

 some years ago imported the tench. 

 Tinea tinea, and this fish has been 

 introduced into the Potomac river and 

 other waters. It is closely allied to the 

 carp, and will, doubtless, be found to be 

 equally valueless as a rod and table - 

 fish. It is, however, one of the most 

 interesting fishes in American waters ; 

 its maximum of growth and flavor of 

 fiesh are in dispute ; its powers of heal- 

 ing the ills of fish, and even of man, 

 are asserted — "the touch of tenches" 

 being held to be efficacious in curing 

 the wounds on fish and sickness in the 

 human invalid. That most voracious 

 of our fresh-water tigers, the pike, will 



not eat him, a fact observed byall mod- 

 ern English anglers and those of the 

 era of Walton, who writes that the pike 

 " forbears to devour him, be he never 

 so hungry." Keene, in his "Practical 

 Fisherman," writing in 1881, says: "I, 

 myself, know of a complete cure of a 

 bad case of jaundice by the agency of 

 a tench. The fish was split open and 

 the inside and backbone taken out ; it 

 was then tied over the region of the 

 liver, and in three days the cure was 

 almost perfect. The tench was found 

 dyed a complete greenish-yellow hue 

 on being taken off." It has been deemed 

 beneficial in case of headache if applied 

 alive to the brow ; if planted on the 

 nape of the neck, it is said to relieve in- 

 flammation of the eyes, and Rhondele- 

 tius tells us he saw a miraculous recov- 

 ery from fever by the application of a 

 tench to a sick man's foot. Apparently, 

 the tench is esteemed by its fish con- 

 geners for its medicinal attributes, and 

 it may be that the thick slime with 

 which this fish is encoated, may have a 

 balsam or healing power. Its own body 

 is almost entirely free from fungoid 

 and other diseases, and Camden states 

 that he has seen "pike's paunches 

 opened with a knife to show their fat- 

 ness, and presently the wide gashes and 

 wounds came together by touch of 

 tenches, and with their glutinous slime 

 perfectly healed up." Finally, Wright, 

 in his "Fishes and Fishing," states that 

 he was an eye-witness to seeing a 

 wounded minnow in an aquarium, im- 

 mediately after being wounded in the 

 nose by a hook in the hands of a clumsy 

 attendant, descend to mid-water in the 

 aquarium, poise himself for a moment 

 with his nose downward, " then swiftly 

 swum and rubbed the wound against 

 the side of a tench which was at the 

 bottom of the tank. Immediately the 

 little fish was as friskv as ever." All 



