THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



XX. — On the Stinging property of the Lesser Weever-fish 

 (Trachinus Vipera.). By George James Allman, Esq. 

 In a Letter to Wm. Thompson, Esq., Vice-Pres. Natural 

 History Society of Belfast. 



Bandon, August 20, 1840. 

 My Dear Sir, 

 I have lately had an opportunity of making some observa- 

 tions on the reputed stinging power of the Lesser Weever 

 [Trachinus Vipera), and the result, I think, may tend to clear 

 up a point with respect to which much difference has pre- 

 vailed among naturalists. The older naturalists seem almost 

 universally to coincide with the popular opinion entertained 

 respecting this little fish, and to agree in ascribing venomous 

 properties to the wounds inflicted with its spines. There can 

 be little doubt that the fishes to which the ancients gave the 

 names Araneus, Draco, Dracunculus, and probably some 

 others, were the Greater and Lesser Weevers of our coasts j 

 and to those they invariably attribute poisonous properties. 

 Pliny accuses the Araneus of inflicting dangerous wounds with 

 the spines of its back. After speaking of a poisonous fish 

 which he calls Lepus, he says, "^Eque pestiferum animal 

 araneus, spina? in dorso aculeo noxius*." In another place, 

 speaking of Dracunculus, he tells us that it inflicts poisoned 

 wounds with the spines of the opercula : " Aculeos in branchiis 

 habet ad caudam spectantes, sic ut scorpio laedit dum manu 

 tolliturf." Similar properties are attributed to the dorsal spines 

 of these fishes by ^Elian and Oppian. In the following pas- 

 sage from the Halieutics several spinous fishes are grouped 

 together, all of which are described by the poet as inflicting 

 poisoned wounds, though some of them are undoubtedly in- 

 nocuous, and classed here with venomous fishes, for the same 

 reason which induces our own fishermen to attribute to the 



* Hist. Naturalis, ix. 72. f Ibid, xxxii. 53. 



Ann. # Mag. Nat. Hist. Nov. 1B40. m 



