CHAPTER XI. OBSERVATIONS OF THE TENCH, 

 AND ADVICE HOW TO ANGLE FOR HIM 



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 Dorset- 

 shire 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 

 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 communicating them to any other nation or tribe : for 

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

 that they, or some spirit worse than they, first told us, that lice 

 swallowed alive were a certain cure for the Yellow-Jaundice. 

 This, and many other medicines were discovered by them or by 

 revelation ; for, doubtless, we attained them not by study. 



Well, this fish, besides his eating, is very useful both dead 



