TENCH BAIT FOE PIKE. 



267 



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

 the physician of the pike. 



Brown, in his piscatorial eclogues, has put Isaac 

 AValton's words into verse as follows : 



" The tench he spares ; 

 For when by wounds distressed, or sore disease, 

 He courts the sahitarj fish for ease ; 

 Close to his scales the kind physician glides, 

 And sweats the healing balsam from his sides." 



This is a regular case of x^oetical license, and carries 

 out the idea so well forinularised by Horace as follows : 



" Pictoribus atque poetis 

 QuidHbet audendi semper fuit fequa potestas." 



This old story that pike will not eat tench is a 

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



TENCH. 



me, '' Yoii cannot put a better bait on a trimmer than a 

 young tench. Trout will also eat tench. When draw- 

 ing my pond, I caught a trout between two and three 

 pounds. Out of its stomach I took tw^enty-two little 

 tench the size of minnows." 



Tench are found in great numbers in Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, in deep, sluggish, muddy w^aters. 



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



