CHAPTER XI 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE TENCH ; AND ADVICE HOW 

 TO ANGLE FOR HIM 



[ffourtb 



Pise. The Tench, the physician of fishes, is observed 

 to love ponds better than rivers, and to love pits better 

 than either : yet Camden observes, there is a river in 

 Dorsetshire that abounds with tenches, but doubtless 

 they retire to the most deep and quiet places in it. 



This fish hath very large fins, very small and smooth 

 scales, a red circle about his eyes, which are big and of a 

 gold colour, and from either angle of his mouth there hangs 

 down a little barb. In every tench's head there are two 

 little stones which foreign physicians make great use of, 

 but he is not commended for wholesome meat, though 

 there be very much use made of them for outward applica- 

 tions. Rondeletius says, that at his being at Rome, he 

 saw a great cure done by applying a tench to the feet of 

 a very sick man. This, he says, was done after an unusual 

 manner, by certain Jews. And it is observed, that many 

 of those people have many secrets yet unknown to 

 Christians ; secrets that have never yet been written, 

 but have been (since the days of their Solomon, who 

 knew the nature of all things, even from the cedar to the 

 shrub) delivered by tradition, from the father to the son, 

 and so from generation to generation, without writing ; 

 or (unless it were casually), without the least communi- 

 cating them to any other nation or tribe ; for to do that 

 they account a profanation. And, yet, it is thought that 



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