83. There is also the tench. "The tench is very juicy," as Icesius says, "exceedingly attractive to the palate, very easily secreted, not very nutritious, nor is the juice which they give very wholesome. But, in delicacy of flavour, the white kind is superior to the black. But the flesh of the green tench is more dry, and devoid of fat; and they give a much smaller quantity of juice, and what they do give is thinner. Still they are more nutritious, on account of their size." Diocles says that those which are found in rocky situations are very tender. But Numenius, in his treatise on Fishing, calls them, not κωβιοι, but κωθοι. A char or tench (κωθος) of mighty size and bold. And Sophron, in his Countryman, speaks of "The cothons, who bathe in mud;" and perhaps it was from the name of this fish that he called the son of his Tunny-catcher, in the play, Cothonias. But it is the Sicilians who call the tench κώθων, as Nicander the Colophonian tells us, in his book on Dialects; and Apollodorus confirms the statement, in his treatise on the Modest and Temperate Man. But Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Marriage, names the tench, calling it κώβιος:— The turtle with their sting behind, and then the tender tench. And Antiphanes, in his Timon, praising the tench, tells us in what places they are to be found in the greatest perfection, in these lines:— I come, but I have been to great expense In buying viands for this marriage feast. I've bought a pennyworth of frankincense To offer to the gods and all the goddesses; And to the heroes I will offer cakes. But when I bid that rascally house-breaking Seller of fish to add a dainty dish, "I'll throw you in," says he, "the borough itself, For they are all Phalericans." The rest I do believe were selling our Otrynicans.[6] Menander, in his Ephesians, says— _A._ There was a fishmonger not long ago, Who asked four whole drachmas for his tench. _B._ A mighty price indeed. And Dorion mentions river tench also, in his book on Fishes. 84. There is also a fish called the cuckoo-fish. Epicharmus says— And the beauteous cuckoos Which we split in twain, Then we roast and season them, And then with pleasure eat them. And Dorion says that one ought to roast them, first having split them down the back; and, having seasoned them with herbs, and cheese, and spice, and assafœtida, and oil, then one ought to turn them round, and oil them on the other side, and then to sprinkle them with a little salt; and, when one has taken them from the fire, to moisten them with vinegar. But Numenius gives it the epithet of red, from the facts of the case, saying— Eating sometimes the cuckoo red, sometimes A few pempherides, or else a lizard. [Sidenote: FISH.]