The fourth day-continued

On the Tench

Chapter XI

Piscator

The Tench, the physician of fishes, is observed to love ponds better
than rivers, and to love pits better than either: yet Camden observes,
there is a river in Dorsetshire that abounds with Tenches, but doubtless
they retire to the most deep and quiet places in it.

This fish hath very large fins, very small and smooth scales, a red circle
about his eyes, which are big and of a gold colour, and from either
angle of his mouth there hangs down a little barb. In every Tench's head
there are two little stones which foreign physicians make great use of,
but he is not commended for wholesome meat, though there be very
much use made of them for outward applications. 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. This, he says, was done after an unusual
manner, by certain Jews. And it is observed that many of those people
have many secrets yet unknown to Christians; secrets that have never
yet been written, hut have been since the days of their Solomon, who
knew the nature of all things, even from the cedar to the shrub,
delivered by tradition, from the father to the son, and so from
generation to generation, without writing; or, unless it were casually,
without the least communicating them to any other nation or tribe; for