ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
95 
name of pirates, for, though feeding principally 
by night and upon small prey, as many fishes 
do, they have a strikingly robust appetite. In 
a state of nature, water insects constitute ninety 
per cent, of their food, to which a few crusta¬ 
ceans, aquatic worms and algae are added by 
way of variety. But in captivity, if their natural 
food is not provided and substitutes prove un¬ 
satisfactory, they are said to have no hesitation 
in gobbling any little minnow, roach, dace or 
shiner that happens to be at their mercy. At 
the New York Aquarium we have experienced 
no trouble with them in this respect. 
The specimens now on exhibition in the 
Aquarium are the first shown in several years, 
though the species is found in lakes and streams 
from New York to Texas. They have a strong 
tendency to conceal themselves by day among 
the rocks or behind pebbles, plants and shells. 
Fishes with such tendencies as these, when 
placed with other species that forage by day., 
soon learn to change their habits. Otherwise 
bv the time they are ready to feed under cover 
of darkness, none of the food thrown in during 
the day will remain for them. 
Fishes are keen observers, and a wild speci¬ 
men that would not eat for weeks after capture 
if left alone, will quickly take food when placed 
in a tank where tame fishes are feeding. 
At first glance the pirates appear to be inky 
black, but they are really dark green suffused 
with black bars and spots. 
By far the most interesting thing about them 
is their physiology, for as they grow older, 
a prolongation of the intestine takes place, and 
the vent gradually moves forward from its 
position behind the ventral fins until it comes 
to occupy a jugular position, i. e., just below 
the knob of the throat. This curious feature 
resulted originally in the naming of two separate 
species of pirates, though, as we now know, one 
was the young of the other. The name Aphre- 
doderus refers to this physical peculiarity, 
which, though not unique among fishes, is ex¬ 
ceedingly rare. As Jordan and Evermann 
interestingly express it, the pirate perches are 
“a relic of a lost fauna.” 
DOCTOR TENCH 
By Ida M. Mellen 
T HE Aquarium received from Germany last 
winter a consignment of European tench, 
the gift of Mr. Heinrich Hagenbeck. These 
are the common tench, Tinea tinea, called 
Schleie in Germany. The shipment of 101 
specimens arrived in excellent condition, al¬ 
though nearly three weeks elapsed before they 
would take food. Many were fishes of small size 
and none measures more than six inches in 
length. 
The tencli is referred to commonly in Euro¬ 
pean literature, though not always favorably. 
As early as the fourth century, Ausonius, the 
Latin poet, called it “plebeian fish fare,” and its 
chief economic value in the past was apparently 
a medicinal one, the fish having been used to 
make poultices. This strange practise no doubt 
arose from the belief that the fish healed wounds 
of other fishes, principally the pike. It was 
said that the tench would lick the wound of a 
pike and cure it of its injury. Hence the name 
“Dr. Tench.” It was even imagined that the 
pike, because of the medical attention it re¬ 
ceived from the tench, woidd not eat its small 
benefactor. But this pleasant superstition was 
exploded by the discovery that the tench makes 
excellent bait in fishing for pike! 
The body of the tench is more slimy than that 
of most fishes, and it is a stupid, sluggish crea¬ 
ture, not infrequently caught in the hand while 
napping during the daytime. Only the tail 
appears to possess much sensitiveness, and the 
fish therefore fails to realize that it has been 
captured until it finds itself actually lifted out 
of the water, when, of course, struggling is in 
vain. 
The natural food of tench consists of aquatic 
worms, insects and molluscs, together with a 
pond plant—one of the potamogetons—which 
they browse on so habitually that it is called 
tench weed. They also swallow considerable 
quantities of mud, from which they doubtless 
extract animal and vegetable substances. Tench 
are not known to eat other fishes. 
They inhabit lakes and ponds, rivers and 
marshes—slow waters by preference—and are 
most tenacious of life, living a long time during 
summer droughts in the dried-up mud of ponds. 
Because of this tenacity it is related that in 
Europe, when tench are taken to market, those 
remaining unsold at the end of the day are re¬ 
turned to the water! On the other hand, a 
European tells us that by reason of the fish’s 
mud-eating habits and its frequenting of slug¬ 
gish waters, the custom is to place it in pure, 
running water for a time, to get it clean enough 
for consumption, and it is in this manner sold 
alive in the markets. Possibly it was to tencli 
as taken uncleaned from the mud, that Ausonius 
referred. 
