THE TENCH. 95 



The gudgeon is gregarious, wandering about 

 in shoals, and feeding upon worms, the larvse 

 of insects, and the eggs of fishes. Few fish 

 bite more freely ; two or three dozen, indeed, 

 may be often taken in the course of an hour. 

 This fish seldom exceeds five or six inches 

 in length. As it is well known, no detailed 

 description is necessary. It breeds in May, 

 depositing its eggs among loose stones and 

 gravel. 



The deep pits, ponds, lakes, and still, sluggish 

 rivers of England, (and also of some few parts 

 of Scotland and Ireland,) present us with the 

 tench, (Tenca vulgaris,) a deep-bodied slimy 

 fish, with minute scales, and decidedly superior 

 for the table to the carp. This fish appears, 

 like the carp, to have been at some period in- 

 troduced and naturalized in our island, but 

 we have no data respecting it. The most con- 

 genial abodes of this fish are deep drainage 

 ponds of soft water, with a muddy bottom, hav- 

 ing a luxuriant border of aquatic plants, with 

 abundance of pond-weed throughout. In such 

 pits or ponds, it thrives and multiplies greatly, 

 often attaining to a considerable size, and the 

 weight of two or three pounds. Occasionally it 

 is said to taste rankly of some kind of weed or 

 mud ; but specimens of this fish, from some of 



