TETRAGONURUS ATLANTICUS. 



133 



cumstances under -wliicli the Madeiran fisli was captured, might be owing 

 to mere accidental weakness and disease. The nature of its food in MM. 

 Cuvier and Risso's fish, proves that it takes at least its prey upon or near 

 the surface. 



Nothing is further known about the habits, qualities, or breeding- 

 season of the Madeiran fish. Risso relates of that of the Mediterranean, 

 that it " lives solitary and single at great depths, which it prefers ; only 

 approaching the shore in summer (June, September), when it is in spawn." 

 " Its flesh,'' he adds, " though white and tender, is injurious at this 

 season, because the fish feeds upon Stephanomia. and other floating Ra- 

 diata (Jelly-fish), which, from their extreme causticity and acrid pro- 

 perties, are no doubt the cause of this peculiar quality."* From MM. 

 Cuvier and Valenciennes' fuller account, this author seems to have been 

 adventurous enough to test himself, and more than once, its dangerous 

 properties ; which produced in him all the usual symptoms of an acrid 

 poison : namely, a burning heat in the throat and tonsils, nausea, vomit- 

 ing, sharp pains in the bowels, ending with tenesmus, and with lassitude 

 in all the limbs during two days. They confirm this Ichthyologist's 

 account of the food of the Tetragonurus ; having found the stomach, 

 in the example which they describe and figure, and which they state 

 to have been captured in the month of February, filled with the remains 

 of such Acalepha ; and they agree with him in ascribing to this poison- 

 ous food of the fish, the deleterious efiects produced upon the human 

 system by its flesh. -f- 



The question of the specific identity or difference of the Madeiran and 

 Mediterranean fishes will be best entertained after a full description of 

 the former. 



This fish in shape is elongate and subfusiform ; and is characterized no less to 

 the eye by a remarkable neatness and general plumpness or roundness of form 

 throughout, than by a peculiar flexibility combined with fulness and compactness 

 to the touch. The regularity and distinctly spiral distribution of the scales, 

 together with the absence of all spines or prominences, contribute to the general 

 impression on the eye of plainness, elegance, and symmetry. The head is some- 

 what compressed, but the body scarcely so at all, and that only from the shoulders 

 to the vent. Behind this it is quite cylindric, and as broad as high ; becoming 

 however towards the tail distinctly square or isotetrahedral, with the angles obso- 

 lete, but the upper (dorsal) and under (ventral) sides especially flattened. At 

 the origin of the caudal fin these four equidistant angles rise suddenly into four 



* Riss. Hist. iii. 382, 383. 



t The case of the Hedgehog feeding -with impunity upon Cantharides, of which a " single insect 

 is sufficient rapidly to kill a good-sized dog," does not seem to be much in point. It only is an 

 instance of a common well-known fact, exemplified in the case of the Brazilian hogs feeding on the 

 poisonous wild Cassava-roots. The curious phenomenon is not that the fish should find its food in 

 what is poisonous to man, but that its flesh should be in this loay rendered deleterious. Is this last 

 the case with a Cantharides- fed Hedgehog ? It is not so with the Cassava-root-fed hogs. 

 VOL. I. L 



