CHAPTER XI 



Observations of the Tench, and Advice how to Angle for him. 



. The Tench, the physician of fishes, is ob- 

 served 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 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 



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