M. A. Diinieril on Venomous Fishes. 161 



the foregoing explanations of these phenomena to the exclusion 

 of the others. We have, in fact, seen that several of them are 

 entitled to equal consideration. Further, in spite of what has 

 been hitherto asserted, such poisonous action is not to he attri- 

 buted to any poison of a particular nature, sui generis. There 

 is, in fact, no known ichthyic venom*. 



Enumeration of such Fishes as are known to be poisonous. 



1. Of these there is certainly none more to be dreaded than 

 the Clupea known by the name of Cailleu-tassard^' in the French 

 colonies of the Antilles, and by that of " yellow-bill sprat " in 

 the English colonies of the same islands [Meletta thrissa, Val.). 

 I have already mentioned it when speaking of the opinion ex- 

 pressed by Ferguson that fishes acquire poisonous properties 

 merely through having fed upon the ' Cailleu-tassard.' Making 

 allowance for the exaggeration of this statement, we may never- 

 theless regard the poison residing in the flesh of various spe- 

 cies as due to the influence of this Meletta, which is indeed 

 venomous to an almost incredible degree, as attested by Rob. 

 Thomas (of Salisbury), who practised the medical profession in 

 these colonies. He relates that this fish has, in several instances, 

 been known to occasion death, with frightful convulsions, in the 

 space of half an hour (Nouv. Traite de Med. Prat., transl. by 

 Hipp. Cloquet, t. ii. p. 641). Death, prompt and certain, he 

 says, is the consequence of a repast composed of this fish 

 (p. 64.2)t. 



2. Another Meletta, proper to the Indian seas {M. venenosa, 

 Val.), is almost equally formidable. It is probably to this spe- 

 cies that Capt. Jouan refers in a letter to me, dated 1861, from 

 Port de France (New Caledonia), where he says the " Sardines," 

 as they are vulgarly called, are nearly always poisonousj. 



* Hipp. Cloquet, in the Diet. d. Sc. Nat. t. xxii. p. 550 et seq., has treated 

 the present subject under the above title ; but he has made use of this 

 expression merely to designate poisonous effects produced by the alimentary 

 use of different species, without connecting them with any special veno- 

 mous properties residing in their flesh. 



[It may be as well to call attention to Dr. Glinther's discovery of a 

 poison-organ in a Batrachoid fish (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 155). — Tr.] 



t Can it be true, as, indeed, the negro fishermen of Guadeloupe informed 

 W. Ferguson (" On Poisonous Fishes of the Carribbee Islands," Trans. 

 Roy. Soc. Edinb. 1821, t. ix. p. 69), that the ' Cailleu-tassard ' is never 

 venomous when taken in the Bay of La Basse-terre, even at the season when 

 it is more particularly dangerous out of that bay, though at a very slight 

 distance and along with other Clupece which cause no ill effects whatever? 



X He informs me, in another letter, that many fearful and sudden acci- 

 dents, occurring after the occupation of New Caledonia, caused several of 

 the fishes of its coast to be regarded with suspicion. He asserts that their 



