TENCH. 23 



the descriptive epithet may more fitly apply to the latter than 

 to the former. 



There is reason to helieve that the Tench has always heen an 

 inhabitant of our lakes and slowly-moving rivers, in the deeper 

 portions of which, where weeds and mud abound, it finds 

 congenial haunts; and where its food of vegetables, worms, and 

 small fishes is easily and abundantly obtained. A slimy bottom 

 is especially selected, and from this circumstance, as also from 

 the slimy covering of its body, in which last particular it 

 exceeds most fishes which possess scales, in some countries it has 

 received its name. It has been observed that these fishes, 

 which are fond of associating together, are much in the custom 

 of licking from each other this mucous secretion, as they also 

 are of nibbling any soft and fat substance, even of a wound 

 which may have been received in assaults from one another. This 

 nibbling of the raw surface has been interpreted into an intended 

 healing process, and the Tench has accordingly been termed 

 the Physician of fishes. 



Holinshed believes that he is giving a proof that this fish 

 is the Leach of fishes by saying — "for when the fishmonger 

 has opened his (the Pike's) side, and laied out his rivet unto 

 the buier for the better utterance of his ware, and cannot make 

 him away at that present, he laieth the same againe into the 

 proper place, and sowing up the wound, he restoreth him to the 

 pond where Tenches are, who never cease to sucke and licke 

 his greeved place, till they have restored him in health and 

 made him readie to come againe to the stall when his turne 

 shall come about." This idea of the healing virtue of the 

 Tench's mouth, and not of the slimy exudation of its sides 

 as a modern poet has surmised, has almost amounted to a 

 superstition, and is referred to even in the Book of St. Albans; 

 but it appears to have no other foundation than the love of 

 this fish for the substance exuding from the wound, and the 

 impunity with which the nibbling may be accomplished, with 

 some benefit, although not an intended one, to the process of 

 healing; but that it is less liable than other fishes to be 

 devoured by the Pike may be a truth, although the cause of 

 this exemption seems not easily explained. The Pilotfish swims 

 near the Shark in safety while other fishes cannot venture to 

 do the same. 



