264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



erect are two little hooks curved like fish hooks and 3 inches long. Its flesh has a 

 good flavor and is sufficient to feed 40 men. 



He thus describes the toad-fish : 



iZ4, 



Fig. 2. Tfiqui, after Marcgrave, page 178. 



This fish is called Niqui by the Brasilians and by our people Pieterman." 

 It has a thick head, a large frog-like mouth, is toothless, has a thick tongue, 

 and the lower jaw is a little longer than the upper. The anterior middle region 

 of the body is rather broad, the hinder narrow and rounded. It is at most 6 

 or 7 inches long and in the anterior part the breadth is about lh inches, or a 

 little more. Its eyes are small and prominent, set on cylinders like those of the 

 land crab, the pupil is dark and the iris an ashy-brown. It has large gills and a 

 little back of these a fin (on each side) an inch long and wide, rounded at the 

 edge, on the belly beneath these a little further back the gills join. The fin on 

 the mid-dorsal region is continued almost to the tail, an inch and one half high 

 it grows narrower behind, and on the hindmost parts of the underside of the 

 body there is a corresponding one. The tail is more than an inch long, of less 

 width, shaped like a parallelogram, and rounded at the extremity. In front of 

 the beginning of the dorsal fin it has two strong spines, and above either post- 

 branchial a sharp one. It is covered with skin whose color varying from dark 

 to black, is gray mixed, plainly seen over the whole back, head and sides, and 

 on all the fins. The belly is white, and on the sides it is rather white than black 

 or gray. Over the whole back, head and sides there are scattered little black 

 spots the size of a poppy seed. It lies hidden in the sand near the seashore, and 

 wounds the feet of men stepping on it. 



The great excellence of Marcgrave's book, and that which distin- 

 guishes it from the works of Gesner and Aldrovandi, is that it is abso- 

 lutely original. These naturalists, while they did great and good work 

 for natural history, were compilers, copiers, men who systematized the 

 observations of travelers, but who themselves never saw a tithe of the 

 animals whose figures and descriptions they put into their great folios. 

 Hence it is not strange that their pages are filled with figures of mytho- 

 logical monsters, which make it hard at times for the modern naturalist 

 to give them the credit they deserve. 



Xot so Marcgrave, however. He went to Brazil and lived in its 

 wilds. His figures and descriptions were made from the animals them- 

 selves, and very probably in most cases from life. 14 Furthermore all or 



13 The modern name of this toad-fish is not known to the present writer. 

 Jordan and Evermann ("Fishes of North America," Vol. III., p. 2315) refer 

 to "The Brazilian genus Marcgravia (cryptocentra) . . .," which is possibly 

 the fish above described. 



14 At Freiburg in Mauritia, Count Maurice had gardens in which large 

 numbers of the plants of the country were set out, he also had cages in which 



