71 ON THE POISONOUS FISHES 



occurrence of the kind that had lately taken place in that 

 island. Dr Osborne of Antigua, by whom all the above was 

 fully admitted, professed, nevertheless, much confidence in the 

 precaution of gutting the fish, and stated an instance of a 

 Creole lady, who would venture to eat the yellow-billed sprat 

 at all times, when she could depend on the fishermen cleaning 

 them out as soon as caught ; but this must in all probability 

 have been owing to peculiar idiosyncrasy in the person, as no 

 cleaning out of the fish, however promptly and perfectly per- 

 formed, rendered them safe to otliers. It was proven at the 

 same time, by a report from an eminent physician at Marti- 

 nique, transmitted through Staff-surgeon Woulfe, that not 

 even salting the fish after cleaning it, could at all times do 

 away the poisonous quality; a family in that island having just 

 been severely poisoned by eating a baracoota that had been in 

 salt twenty-four hours. The blacks always profess the ut- 

 most dread for the yellow-billed sprat, during the months 

 when, according to their vulgar saying, the coral is in blossom, 

 but at other times they eat them without scruple, and with im- 

 punity, giving no other reason but that the season of danger is 

 past. I see no room to doubt of the madrepore being in par- 

 ticular activity at certain seasons of the year, and that fisher- 

 men are more sensible of the growth of coral at these times 

 than at others ; but 1 think there is much reason to doubt of 

 this growth at all affecting the quality of the fish that feed up- 

 on the corallines, seeing that Barbadoes, which is a coral for- 

 mation in all its coasts and shores, is of all the islands in the 

 West Indies, the one, I believe, where poisonous fish are most 

 rarely seen. Besides, it is not on the coasts of coral formation 

 where these animals are commonly found. Antigua may be 

 a partial exception ; but their more favourite resort would ap- 

 pear to be the shores of the volcanic islands of the West In- 



M^ dies. 



