THE FOURTH VAX continued 



On the Tench 



CHAPTER XI 



PISCATOR 



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 com- 

 mended for wholesome meat, though there be very 

 much use made of them for outward applications. 

 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 

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