28. The TENCH.

The tench underwent the fame fate with the barbel, in respect to the notice taken of it by the early writers: and even Aufonius, who first mentions it, treats it with fuch difrefpect, as evinces the great capricioufnets of talte; for that fish, which at present is held in fuch good repute was, in his days the repaft only of the canaille.

Quis non et virides vulgia folatia Tincas
Norit?

The tench is thick and fort in proportion to its length: the fcales are very fmall, and covered with flime.

The irides are red: there is fometimes, but not always, a small beard at each corner of the mouth.

The colour of the back is dufky; the dorfal and ventral fins of the fame colour: the head, fides, and belly, of a greenish caft, most beautifully mixed with gold, which is in its greateft fplendor when the fish is in the highest feafon.

The tail is quite even at the end, and very

It has been by fome called the Physician | broad.
of the fub, and that the flime is fo healing,
that the wounded apply it as a ftyptic. The
ingenious Mr. Diaper, in his pifcatory ec-
logues, fays, that even the voracious pike will
are the tench on account of its healing
powers:

The Tench he fpares a medicinal kind;
For when by wounds diftreft, or fore difcafe,
He courts the falutary fish for eafe;
Clofe to his fcales the kind phyfician glides,
And sweats a healing balfam from his fide.

Ecl. II.

Whatever virtue its flime may have to the inhabitants of the water, we will not vouch for, but its flesh is wholefome and delicious food to thofe of the earth. The Germans are of a different opinion. By way of contempt, they call it Shoemaker. Geiner even fays, that it is infipid and unwholefome.

It does not commonly exceed four or five pounds in weight, but we have heard of one that weighed ten pounds; Salvianus fpeaks of fome that arrived at twenty pounds.

They love ftill waters, and are rarely found in rivers: they are very foolith, and easily quught.

$29. The Gudgeon.

Ariftotle mentions the gudgeon in two places; once as a river fish, and again as a fpecies that was gregarious: in a third place he defcribes it as a fea fifh; we must therefore confider the Kablog he mentions, lib. ix. c. z. and lib. viii. c. 19. as the fame with our fpecies.

This fish is generally found in gentle ftreams, and is of a fmall fize: thofe few, however, that are caught in the Kennet, and Cole, are three times the weight of thofe taken elfewhere. The largest we ever heard of was taken near Uxbridge, and weighed half a pound.

They bite eagerly, and are affembled by raking the bed of the river; to this spot they immediately crowd in thoals, expecting food from this difturbance.

The shape of the body is thick and round: the irides tinged with rel: the gill covers with green and filver: the lower jaw is fhorter than the upper: at each corner of the mouth is a fingie board: the back olive, fpotted with black: the fide dine ftriit; the fides beneath that filvery: the belly white.

The

The tail is forked; that, as well as the dorfal fin, is spotted with black.

$30. The BREAM.

The bream is an inhabitant of lakes, or the deep parts of ftill rivers. It is a fifh that is very little esteemed, being extremely inlipid.

$ 32. The ROACH.

'Sound as a roach,' is a proverb that appears to be but indifferently founded, that fish than many others; yet it is ufed by the French being not more difhinguifhed for its vivacity as well as us, who compare people of strong health to their gardon, our roach.

It is a common fish, found in many of our It is extremely deep, and thin in propor-deep ftill rivers, nffecting, like the others of tion to its length. The back rifes very much, this genus, quiet waters. It is gregarious, and is very tharp at the top. The head and keeping in largefhoals. We have never feen mouth are finall on fome we examined in them very large. Old Walton speaks of fome the fpring, were abundance of minute whitish that weighed two pounds. In a list of fish tubercles; an accident which Pliny feems to fold in the London Markets, with the greatest have obferved befals the fish of the Lago weight of each, communicated to us by an Maggiore, and Lago di Como. The fcales intelligent fishmonger, is mention of one whose are very large: the fides flat and thin. weight was five pounds.

The dorsal fin has eleven rays, the fecond of which is the longeft: that fin as well as all the reft, are of a dufky colour; the back of the fame hue: the fides yellowish. The tail is very large, and of the form of a crefcent.

31. The CRUCIAN.

This fpecies is common in many of the fifh-ponds about London, and other parts of the fouth of England; but I believe is not a native fish.

much elevated, and sharply ridged: the fcales The roach is deep but thin, and the back is large and fall off very easily. Side line bends much in the middle towards the belly.

$ 33. The DACE.

This, like the roach, is gregarious, haunts the fame places, is a great breeder, very lively: and during fummer is very fond of frolicing near the furface of the water. This fish and the roach are coarse and infipid meat.

Its head is fmall: the irides of a pale yel- It is very deep and thick; the back is low: the body long and flender; its length much arched: the dorsal fin confifts of nine-feldom above ten inches, though in the aboveteen rays; the two firft ftrong and ferrated. mentioned lift is an account of one that weighed The pectoral fins have (each) thirteen rays; a pound and a half: the scales smaller than the ventral nine; the anal feven or eight: the thofe of the roach. lateral line parallel with the belly: the tail almost even at the end.

The back is varied with dufky, with a caft of a yellowish green: the fides and belly filvery; the dorfal fin dufky: the ventral, anal. and caudal fins red, but lefs fo than thofe of the former: the tail is very much forked.

§. 34. The CHUB.

It does not grow to a large fize; we have known fome that weighed above five pounds, but Salvianus fpeaks of others that were eight or nine pounds in weight.

The body is oblong, rather round, and of a pretty equal thickness the greateft part of the way: the feales are large.

Salvianus imagines this fifh to have been the fqualus of the ancients, and grounds his opinion on a fuppofed error in a certain paffage in Collumella and Varro, where he would fubftitute the word fqualus inftead of [carus: Collumella fays no more than that the old The irides filvery; the cheeks of the fame Romans paid much attention to their ftews, colour: the head and back of a deep dusky and kept even the fea fith in fresh water, pay-green; the fides filvery, but in the fummer yellow: the belly white: the pectoral fins of a pale yellow: the ventral and anal fins red: the tail a little forked, of a brownish hue, but tinged with blue at the end.

ing as much refpect to the mullet and fearus, as thofe of his days did to the murana and bafs.

That the fcarus was not our chub, is very evident; not only because the chub is entirely an inhabitant of fresh waters, but likewife it feems improbable that the Romans would give themfelves any trouble about the worst of river fish, when they neglected the most delicious kind; all their attention was directed towards thofe of the fea: the difficulty of procuring them feems to have been the criterion of their value, as is ever the cafe with effete luxury.

$35. The BLEAK.

The taking of thefe, Aufonius lets us know, was the fport of children,

ALBURNOS prædam puerilibus hamis. They are very common in many of our rivers, and keep together in large thoals. These fish feem at certain feafons to be in great agonies; they tumble about near the furface of the water, and are incapable of

The chub is a very coarfe fish, and full of bones: it frequents the deep holes of rivers, and during fummer commonly lies on the fur-fwimming far from the place, but in about face beneath the fhade of fome tree or bush. It is a very timed fish, finking to the bottom on the leaft alarm, even at the paffing of a fhadow, but they will foon refume their fituation. It feed on worms, caterpillars, grafshoppers, beetles, and other coleopturous infects that happen to fall into the water: and it will even feed on cray-fish. This fish will rife to a fly.

This fish takes its name from its head, not only in our own, but in other languages: we call it chub, according to Skinner, from the old English, cop, a head; the French, teftard; the Italians, capitone.

two hours recover, and difappear. Fish thus affected the Thames fifhermen call mad bleaks. They feemed to be troubled with a fpecies of gordius or hair-worm, of the fame kind with those which Ariftotle fays that the ballerus and tillo are infefted with, which torments them fo that they rife to the furface of the water and then die.

Artificial pearls are made with the fcales of this fifh, and we think of the dace. They are beat into a fine powder, then diluted with water and introduced into a thin glafs bub

Hift. an. lib. viii. c. 20.

ble,

$37. The GOLD FISH.

These fish are now quit naturalized in this country, and breed as freely in the open waters as the common carp.

They were first introduced into England about the year 1691, but were not generally known till 1728, when a great number were brought over, and prefented first to Sir Mathew Dekker, and by him circulated round the neighbourhood of London, from whence they have been distributed to most parts of the

country.

femblance to a carp. They have been known in this island to arrive at the length of eight inches; in their native place they are faid to grow to the fize of our largest herring.

The noftrils are tubular, and form fort of appendages above the nose; the dorsal fin and the tail vary greatly in fhape: the tail is naturally bifid, but in many it is trifid, and in fome even quadrifid: the anal fins are the ftrongest characters of this fpecies, being placed not behind one another like thofe of other fish, but opposite each other like the ventral fins.

In China the most beautiful kinds are taken The colours vary greatly; fome are marked in a small lake in the province of Che-Kyang. with a fine blue, with brown, with bright filEvery perfon of fashion keeps them for amufe-ver; but the general predominant colour is gold, ment, either in porcelain veffels, or in the small basons that decorate the courts of the Chinefe houfes. The beauty of their colours, and their lively motions, give great entertainment, efpecially to the ladies, whofe pleasures, by reafon of the cruel policy of that country, are extremely limited.

In form of the body they bear a great re

of a moft amazing fplendor; but their colours and form need not be dwelt on, fince those who want opportunity of fecing the living fifh, may furvey them expreffed in the most animated manner, in the works of our ingenious and honeft friend Mr. George. Edwards. Pennant.

Du Halde, 16.

END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

A NEW