108 ANECDOTES OF FISHES 



baits as the carp, with the exception of paste. It 

 bites freely, in summer early and late, and in the 

 autumn in the middle of the day, when the sun is 

 out, and even better towards the close of a shower. 



Editor. 



Mr. Daniel recommends a few gentles to be 

 cast in where you are angling for tench, and the 

 worms dipped in tar, which, he says, has the pro- 

 perty of alluring them ; but the Editor, with all 

 due deference, is somewhat sceptical on this 

 matter. 



Mr. Westerns pond at Munden-hall, Fleet, in 

 Essex, was thick with weeds, and the mud had dyed 

 the fish of its own colour, which was black as ink ; 

 yet no tench could be better grown, or sweeter fla- 

 voured : many were taken that weighed nine and 

 ten pounds the brace ; and the skull and back- 

 bone of one preserved at the hall, compared with 

 those before mentioned, must have been double the 

 weight. At Leigh priory a quantity were caught 

 weighing three pounds each. The shape of the 

 tench taken at Thorn ville Royal stamps it a lusus 

 natura : a pond was ordered to be filled up ; a 

 tench was found grown to the size of a hole under 

 the roots of a tree, where it had many years been 

 confined. Its length, from fork to eye, was two feet 

 nine inches ; circumference, two feet three inches ; 

 weight, eleven pounds nine ounces: belly, vermil- 



