125 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV. 



many fish at other times wholesome become poisonous in the breeding 

 season, and every one knows that a spent trout or salmon is very liable lo 

 give rise to gastric disturbance if eaten. 



The symptoms of poisoning due to fish fall into two distinct groups : 

 (1) true gastro-enteritis with colic and high fever, probably due to a bacterial 

 infection; (2) nerve symptoms, often commencing some time after tho 

 ingestion of the food, attended by constipation, and various forms of 

 paralysis, etc., probably due to intoxication from the alkaloid substances produced 

 during decomposition. 



The following fish are credited with producing poisonous symptoms when 

 taken fresh : — 



(1) Pagellus erykhrinus, a " sea bream " common in Indo-Pacific waters, 

 quoted as nearly causing the death of Quiros, the Spanish navigator, and 

 also described as poisonous in Cook's Voyages. 



Lethrinus mambo in the South Pacific is said to be poisonous when full grown 

 but harmless when young. 



Many of the Squannpinnes or Coral fish, as before stated, acquire poisonous 

 properties from their food. These fish are generally gorgeously coloured, 

 and are like butterflies in the aqueous gardens which they frequent. 



Sphyrcena, or "Barracudas." Their flesh is as a rule eaten with impunity, 

 but two species in the West Indies are known to occasionally produce intense 

 symptoms of poisoning — gastro-intestinal irritation with pain, vomiting, and 

 diarrhoea, etc., followed by marked prostrations and, in a few cases, death 

 from syncope. If the fish is unwholesome, Poe states that the teeth become 

 blackened at the base, and natives say that if a silver coin placed on the flesh 

 becomes black, the fish is unfit for food. 



Some of the mackerels frequently cause gastric irritation ; several species of 

 Thynnus or tunny are stated by Giinther to be poisonous at times — being red- 

 blooded fish, they are liable to rapid decomposition. The Carangidcp, horse 

 mackerel or yellow-tails, have a very bad name at the Cape of Good Hope as 

 being poisonous, especially when they are old, C.falax being the most dreaded. 

 Almost every variety of this genus may be seen in the market at Aden for sale. 

 After eating poisonous Bonito, Tunny, and Horse Mackerel, the symptoms are 

 those of mild gastric enteritis, with urticaria, giddiness, headache, vomiting, and 

 diarrhoea, which may assume a choleraic form, ending in collapse and death. 



Fish of the herring family are undoubtedly very frequently extremely 

 poisonous. Gri'inther gives the following list : — 



Clupea thryssa, the sardine dore of the W. Indies, often causes a rapidly 

 fatal issue. There is a saying that " if you begin at the head you never 

 finish the tail. " The symptoms are pain, prostration, convulsions, and 

 unconsciousness followed by death, sometimes in a quarter of an hour, but 

 generally in from two to three hours. 



C. longiceps, C perforata, C. venenosa, the three latter from the Indian 

 Ocean, are all known to have caused intense purging and collapse. 



