GILL] THE FAMILY OF CYPRINIDS 211 
and several varieties have been originated, one of which is the 
golden tench. Its introduction into the United States was effected 
many years ago but it has not been extensively distributed like 
the carp. 
Some curious myths have originated about the tench. 
Walton commenced his chapter on the fish with the assertion that 
“the tench, the physician of fishes, is observed to love ponds better 
than rivers ”’; he says that it is the physician “ for the pike especially, 
and that the pike, being either sick or hurt, is cured by the touch 
of the tench,” and that the pike “forbears to devour him though 
he be never so hungry.” . (Some anglers nowadays say that “ you 
cannot put a better bait on a trimmer than a young tench. Trout 
will also eat tench.” In the stomach of one trout twenty-two small 
tenches were found.) Nevertheless Carbonnier tells us that in 
France it is to this day called “ fish-doctor”” and that “tench are 
often placed in tubs with other fish which manifest signs of sickness, 
whereupon the tench, occupying the bottom of the tank, force the 
sick fish from their state of inactivity, and compel them to circulate 
freely through the water, an exercise which of itself often proves 
beneficial. Healing properties are also attributed to the mucus 
which flows freely from the skin.” 
Not only was the tench supposed to be a geen of fishes : it 
was of use to man himself. Walton reports that “ 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,” and gives a long account of 
it. Now Rondeletius (or rather Rondelet) was a good ichthyolo- 
gist as well as physician, for his time, and if he believed in such an 
unsubstantial “ fact” it is not to be wondered that Walton did. 
Again Walton repeats that “in every tench’s head there are two 
little stones which foreign physicians make great use of.’ These 
two stones are the otolites or ear-bones which occur alike in all the 
fishes of the same family as well as in almost all other true fishes. 
There may be some basis for the belief that most other fishes 
leave the tench alone. Perhaps the best evidence known has been 
given by J. G. Odelly (1868). He took from an overstocked tank 
“three or four carp and an equal number of tench and put them 
into another tank containing stickebacks. Almost immediately 
after they were put there the sticklebacks set upon the carp and 
gave them no rest till they died,” three or four days later, when no 
“vestige of fin and tail were left.” The tenches, however, were 
“not molested at all’? and remained with the sticklebacks, “ appar- 
