BECHE-DE-MER FISHERIES. 239 



types. A few of these will receive attention in subsequent pages, as there are one or two 

 points of more immediate interest concerning the commercial forms and their near allies. It 

 is worthy of note, among other matters, that the form described under the title ot Red 

 Prickly-fish, Stichopus variegatus, some ten years ago realised the highest market price, sell- 

 ing for as much as from ^130 to ^150 per ton. Its present low position on the list (^30 

 to ^40 per ton only) is due to the fact that a consignment of this variety was sent to China 

 that had been boiled, previously to curing, without any suspicion of danger, in a copper 

 boiler, the result being that a number of Chinese were poisoned. Poisonous properties 

 were immediatelj^ attributed to this particular species of Beche-de-mer, and for a time its 

 sale was altogether interdicted. It is only now slowly recovering its position in the market. 

 The accuracy of this explanation of the depreciated value of Red Prickly-fish has been 

 vouched for to the author by the station-owner who unwittingly cured and despatched the 

 fatal consignment. Through the same informant the author has been made aware of the 

 exceedingly acrid properties of the essential juices of Beche-de-mer, which, if collected and 

 left in bulk for any time in a copper-riveted boat, eats like an acid into, and destroys, the metal. 



In a work entitled Coral Lands by H. Stonehewer Cooper, it is stated (p. 266) that the 

 cottony filaments, or Cuvierian organs, exuded in quantity by Polynesian species apparently allied 

 to, if not identical with, Holothuria argiis, produce a painful inflammation on any part of the 

 human skin with which they may come in contact; also, that the water and associated juices ejected 

 abundantly from other species, when handled, possesses highly inflammatory properties, causing, if 

 it should fall on a surface abrasion of the skin, intense pain, or, if it should come in contact with 

 the eyes, possible loss of sight. No such deleterious properties are associated with the Barrier 

 Reef species, all of which have been handled with impunity, and with, more frequently than other- 

 wise, abraded hands, by the author ; nor has the slightest hint of such an undesirable quality 

 been brought under the author's notice, for, if existing, it would have undoubtedly come in the 

 course of his investigations. Mr. Cooper writes only of four kinds belonging to the Polynesian 

 region, the three others being evidently nearly related to the ordinary teat and black and red 

 varieties. As is well-known, fish which are good eating in one region may be poisonous m 

 others, and the same principle may hold good with reference to allied, if not identical, species 

 of Beche-de-mer. 



The remarkable phenomenon of the ejection of the "Cuvierian" filaments in many of the 

 species of Beche-de-mer is a subject which has attracted a considerable amount of attention, but 

 has not yet been fully explained. In such a form as the yellow Cotton-fish, Holothuria vitiensis, 

 these filaments are poured forth, on handlmg the animal, in copious streams, resembling snow- 

 white hanks of darning-cotton, that appear to be almost inexhaustible. There is a European species, 

 Holothuria nigra, occurring on the Cornish coast and locally known as the " Cotton Spinner," 

 that ejects its Cuvierian organs in the same manner, though to a less conspicuous extent. Mr. 



