THE FOURTH DAY. 



CHAP. XI. Observations of the TENCH, and Advice how to angle 



for him. 



PlSCATOR. 



*"FHE 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 color, 

 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 tra- 

 dition from the father to the son, and so from generation to 

 generation without writing; or, unless it were casually, with- 

 out 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- 



