392 TEINIDAD. 



placed in the nets is generally the manioc root ; several intoxi- 

 cating plants are also used to poison fish in pools and ponds. 

 But, of all our fresh- water fish, the cascaradura is, by far, the 

 most noted. Its length is from six to ten inches; the body 

 nearly prismatic, and covered with very hard horny scales — 

 whence its name. The flesh is of an orange colour, and very 

 delicate ; it ought not to be confounded with the cat-fish, which 

 resembles it very much, but the flesh of which is white and un- 

 savoury. The cascaraduras are found in immense numbers in 

 nearly all our large ponds, but particularly those in the Caroni 

 savannah, and the marshy parts of Nariva, where even a small 

 ravine bears the name of Cascaradura. 



Our salt-water fishes are far more numerous, and of much 

 greater importance, on account of their 'paramount utility as 

 articles of food; there are also among them several which are 

 naturally, or may accidentally become, poisonous. Some of the 

 are caught in the open sea, others near the shore, and at tl 

 mouths of rivers or creeks, and a few in rocky localities, 

 king-fish and Spanish mackerel are taken with tan-lines, eithe 

 in the Gulf, or outside, along the north coast ; they are caugl 

 chiefly during boisterous weather. The anchovy (Caranx) 

 caught in the harbour ; it is of the size of a sardine ; an 

 mense quantity is taken every year during the month of July 

 but they are migratory, and disappear in about three weeks. The 

 pike (Centropomus) , salmon (Otolythus) , and codfish (Ulacates) are 

 also taken in the open sea. The lebranche, mullets ; the balaou, 

 gar-fish, crapaud, and rays are caught near the shore — the former 

 at the mouths of rivers and estuaries or small creeks, which 

 they ascend with the flow, and generally retire from with the 

 ebb ; drag-nets are then laid at the entrance, and the lebranche 

 easily caught; the mullets are taken with the cast-net. The 

 balaou and gar-fish are commonly caught at night by torch-light, 

 or with the seine ; carangues also, sometimes in enormous quanti- 

 ties, with the same ; they are easily announced by their gambols 

 at the surface of the water, and not unfrequently quite close in 

 shore, so as to be then easily surrounded and dragged to land. 

 It is not, perhaps, amiss to mention here a case, wherein about 

 3,000 carangues were thus made prisoners and secured in a net : 

 about 500 were sent to the markets the first day, and from 300 

 to 400 each subsequent day. One of our grupers (Alesoprion) 



