CARP AND TENCH.- 295 



had, of course, for many years been confined. His length from 

 eye to caudal fork was 23 inches, his circumference, almost to the 

 tail, was 27 inches, his weight 11 lbs. g\ ozs.; the colour was also 

 singular, his belly being that of a charr, or vermilion. This extra- 

 ordinary fish, after having been inspected by many gentlemen, was 

 carefully put into a pond, and at the time this account was written 

 twelve months afterwards, was alive and welL 



It is surprising in what unpromising looking holes and 

 corners tench will live and apparently thrive. It is really the 

 most tenacious of life of any fresh water fish except the eel. I 

 have known one of them live for a whole day with the gimp of 

 a double jack hook passed under the skin from gill to tail, the 

 fish being meanwhile cast about from place to place on the 

 water, and suspended in a most unnatural position. In fact, 

 such is the perfection of the organs of the species, that they 

 have been proved by experiment to be able to breathe when the 

 quantity of oxygen is reduced to the 5,000th part of the bulk of 

 the water — river water ordinarily containing about one part of 

 oxygen in a hundred. 



For the tench has always been claimed the royal gift of heal- 

 ing by touch ; and he has been supposed to possess, in the 

 slime with which he is thickly covered, a natural balsam for the 

 cure of himself and others. 



He has been called by old writers the ' physician of fish,' 

 who assert that, as a consequence, the pike, unsparing of every- 

 thing else that swims, has yet in him that 'grace of courtesy' 

 that he will not molest his benefactor. Some experiments, in- 

 deed, which I myself tried appear to lend colour to the fact of 

 the pike's refusing to attack the tench, whatever may be the 

 cause of his self-restraint. 



I procured some small tench, and fished with them as live 

 baits for a whole day in some excellent pike water, but without 

 getting a touch. In the evening I put on a small carp, and had 

 a run almost immediately. I also tried some pike in a stock 

 pond with the same tench, but they would not take them ; 

 and though left in a pond all night — one on a hook, and one 



