76 OF THE POISONOUS FISHES 



that the stinging blubbers (the Medusas and HolotJnirice) which 

 we have no reason to suppose that fishes ever eat, communi- 

 cated the poisonous quality. Another article in the creed of 

 the French Creoles on this subject, viz. that fish were made 

 poisonous by eating the deadly manchineal apples that were 

 carried by the rivers into the sea, was too absurd to be inves- 

 tigated, as its obvious refutation was at once conveyed, in the 

 fact of no poisonous fishes having ever been found in any of 

 the numerous rivers that flowed or stagnated amonest groves 

 of the manchineal tree ; but they believed it from the curious 

 circumstance which induces me to mention their opinion here, 

 of the sea-water being an excellent remedy against the man- 

 chineal poison ; and they therefore believed, that from having 

 the remedy so perfectly at hand, the fish could eat with im- 

 punity what made him so dangerous an article of food to those 

 who catched him. 



From the whole of our inquiry, I think it was established, 

 that no fish, with the exception of the yellow-billed sprat, 

 which, from its small size, is fitted to be the prey of almost 

 every other, could be called regularly or certainly poisonous 

 at any time ; but that with all the rest it was an accidental va- 

 riety, communicated from some particular kind of food. That 

 in the larger fishes of prey, the poisonous quality most pro- 

 bably arose from their having recently preyed upon the yellow- 

 billed sprat (these fishes being found most frequently poison- 

 ous where the yellow-billed sprat abounds), but in all of that 

 description, it would appear to be a transitory quality, com- 

 municated to the animal from the food he had just eaten, and 

 passing away soon after its digestion was completed ; — a sup- 

 position the less improbable, when we consider the quickness 

 of the process of digestion, that, from the shortness of the ali- 

 mentary canal, and great size of the liver, must take place in 

 i»th these 



