348 SUPPLEMENT ON 



not so common at New York as in the Torrid Zone. It ap- 

 pears to be among the small number of fishes that cross the 

 Atlantic, as M. Cuvier received one from Senegal, not dis- 

 tinguishable from those of America. 



Bloch, and after him, Grueber, Lacepede and Shaw, speak 

 of a trichiurus of the East Indies, which from their description, 

 would be very different indeed from the one just mentioned, 

 and more especially if it possessed an electric faculty ana- 

 logous to that of the gymnotus and torpedo. This last pro- 

 perty would render it eminently remarkable. Accordingly 

 MM. de Lacepede has not failed to call it the electric tri- 

 chiurus, in which he has been followed by Shaw. But it ap- 

 pears that the characters and properties announced with so 

 much assurance, rest only on a bad figure given by Nieuhoff, 

 and a transposition of a part of the text which has no re- 

 ference to the figure, nor to any trichiurus. 



The trichiurus haumela is an Asiatic species, and the one 

 which most resembles the American, though by no means 

 the same. It comes from the coasts of Malabar, &c. 



The T. savala, is still more strikingly distinguished. 

 This was also received from Malabar by M. Cuvier; and M. 

 Dussumier tells us of both species, that they are rare in the 

 month of February, but become very abundant in April and 

 May ; that many of them are then salted, and that they form 

 an important article of diet for the Indians during the bad 

 season, when the sea, driven with violence upon the coast 

 from the month of June to September, will not allow their 

 vessels to go out to fish. 



When fresh they are not esteemed, and are never served on 

 the table of Europeans. The same observer fully confirms 

 the erroneousness of their opinion who attributed electric 

 virtues to these fish. He never heard such a thing men- 

 tioned, nor met with a person who had any knowledge of it. 

 This would be impossible, were there any foundation for the 



