THE TENCH. 87 



tench, and fished with them as live baits for a whole day in some 

 excellent pike water, but without getting a touch. In the evening I put 

 on a small carp, and had a run almost immediately. I also tried some 

 pike in a stock pond with the same tench, but they would not take 

 them ; and, though left in the pond all night one on a hook and one 

 attached to a fine thread both baits were alive in the morning, some 

 pike marks being visible, however, on the hooked fish." Salter also tried 

 a similar experiment, and found that every trimmer but those baited with 

 tench had "fished." An admirable poetical version of the matter is 

 as follows : 



The pike, fell tyrant of the liquid plain, 



With ravenous waste devours his fellow train; 



Yet, howsoe'er by raging famine fined, 



The tench he spares-a medicinal kind; 



For, when by wounds distrest and sore disease, 



He courts the salutary fish for ease ; 



Close to his scales the kind physician gliies, 



And sweats a healing balsam from his sides. 



Nor are his medicinal properties only applicable to the "liquid 

 plain." Ehondeletius says he saw a miraculous recovery by the appli- 

 cation of a tench to a sick man's feet. It has also been deemed 

 beneficial in cases of headache if applied alive to the brow ; and if 

 planted on the nape of the neck it is also said to relieve inflammation of 

 the eyes. 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, ; nd 

 in three days the cure was almost perfect. The tench was found dyed a 

 complete greenish-yellow hue on being taken off. Who shall now, 

 therefore, deny this fish its title of "physician ? " 



Gastronomically, the tench is variously esteemed. An old Silesian 

 physician seems to have been very prejudiced against it. He says : " The 

 tench is a vile, neglected fish, very flabby and glutinous, bad for 

 digestion, a food fit only for paupers and serfs.' ' I doubt not M. Soyer 

 would have induced him to revoke his opinion had he tasted .one 

 prepared after the prescription of the great chef. My own opinion is that, 

 if carefully cooked, it is a decided acquisition. Pennell says, apropos of 

 the gastronomic qualities of Tinea vulgaris: "Like the eel, it would 

 appear to be palatable in a precisely inverse ratio to the cleanliness 

 of its abode, improving in gustatory attractions as it approaches more 

 nearly in colour and diet the composition of its habitual mud. Thus, 

 ' tench were taken out of Munden Hall Fleet, Essex, which was so thick 

 with weeds that the flue nets could hardly- be sunk through them, and 

 where the mud was intolerably fetid and had dyed the fish of its own 

 hue, which was that of ink ; yet no tench could be better grown, or of a 

 sweeter flavour.' . . . . ' In a clear pond at Leigh's Priory a quantity 



