72 ACANTHOPTERYGII. SPHYR^NAD^, 



the ratlier to rush towards its victims. Notwith- 

 standing this anthropophagous appetite, however, 

 it is eaten with relish, and is publicly sold in the 

 fish-markets. A graver objection to it is that it 

 is occasionally poisonous, which the colonists be- 

 lieve is owing to its feeding on submerged "copper- 

 banks," or else to its having eaten the deadly fruit 

 of the Manchioneel-tree. If incautiously tasted 

 under such circumstances, it is said to produce 

 sickness, vomiting, and intolerable pain in the 

 head, accompanied with loss of the hair and nails; 

 and, in very bad cases, immediate death is the re- 

 sult. As a criterion of its wholesomeness, the 

 teeth and liver are examined ; if the former be 

 white and the latter bitter, it is sound ; but if the 

 teeth be green and the liver sweetish, it cannot be 

 eaten with impunity. 



" What has been reported," observes M. Cu- 

 vier, " of the poisonous fishes of hot countries, and 

 of that disease called siguatera, which they occa- 

 sion in certain circumstances, is so curious and 

 interesting, that 1 am justified in inserting the 

 information collected by M. Plee on the Barra- 

 coota, which I have found in the papers of that 

 unfortunate naturalist. Many persons, says he, 

 fear to eat this fish because they have had frequent 

 evidence of its causing disease, and sometimes 

 death. This poisonous quality of the Barracoota 

 belongs very certainly to a particular state of the 

 individual, which appears to occur at different 

 seasons of the year. 



** I have consulted many persons with regard to 

 the poison of the Barracoota; all have assured me 

 that there is an infallible mode of determining 

 whether it is, or is not, poisonous. For this end 



