STING RAY. 131 



Pliny remarks how mucli the poisonous effects of such an 

 injury are to be dreaded. 



But the ancients had not learned to distinguish between those 

 effects of an injury, which for the most arise from diseased 

 influences existing in the person who suffered, and those pro- 

 duced by a poison inserted into a wound from the instrument 

 inflicting it. The bite of the adder is of the latter kind; but 

 observation has not confirmed the opinion formerly so widely 

 spread, of the poison communicated by the dart of the Sting 

 Ray; the injury from which is more properly ascribed to the 

 jagged nature of the wounds scattered over a broad surface of 

 the skin. The firmness of the structure of this dart forms also 

 a material portion of its powers; for the numerous points along 

 its sides are in a reversed direction; so that when it has pene- 

 trated the fiesh it cannot be withdrawn without the enlargement 

 of the wound. 



A narrative given by ^lian will shew some of its formidable 

 effects from this cause, and also afford another explanation of 

 the greater terror felt concerning it, where the people were 

 generally ignorant of natural phenomena. A man had con- 

 trived to filch away from the net of a fisherman a Sting Ray, 

 which he had mistaken for a Turbot; and which he hastened 

 to sell in the market. It was concealed under his clothes; 

 and feeling some uneasiness in the part of his body where the 

 fish lay, he pressed it so much the closer. The story appears 

 to shew that in his haste he fell to the ground, by which 

 accident the dart was driven into his body; for he was found 

 dead, with the dart piercing to his bowels, which protruded 

 through the wound; and by this circumstance, in the opinion 

 of the people, the fatal nature of this instrument became still 

 more positively confirmed. 



We need not feel surprised at finding poetry and romance 

 uniting their powers to spread abroad the opinions and feelings 

 thus existing in the public mind; and accordingly the brief 

 notices recorded by Pliny are thus expanded in the poetry of 

 Oppian; in his account of which he unites the Sword Fish 

 with the Sting Ray: — 



The Fireflair's tail its venom'd shaft contains ; — 

 Nor time, nor waste the poisonous treasure drams. 



