POISON FISHES. 395 



sometime in the year 1854, two young children died, within a 

 few hours, after having partaken of the liver of a tetraodon. It 

 is rather remarkable that the voracious corbeau, as if warned by 

 instinct of its poisonous nature, will not touch that fish. 



The gar-fish, or orphie, though neither voracious nor 

 poisonous, may be accidentally the cause of very serious suffer- 

 ings. When disturbed, the orphies dart out of the water with 

 great force, and should their course happen to be across or in 

 the direction of a canoe, may come into contact with one of the 

 persons therein. The snout of this fish, being long and serrated, 

 pierces deeply into the part they hit ; it then generally breaks, 

 a bony fragment remaining in the flesh, or even in the plank of 

 the boat : several accidents of this kind have been known, and in 

 such cases it became necessary to make a deep incision, in order 

 to extract the fragment broken in the flesh. 



Short and concise as is the above sketch, I yet hope that but 

 few genera have been omitted of the great and remarkable class 

 of vertebrated animals. It is true that but few species have 

 been determined, an act of prudence, on account of the great 

 difficulty in procuring objects of comparison, and of distinguish- 

 ing the sexes and ages, among birds. How many errors have 

 arisen from the latter cause ! for, sometimes the female is more 

 different from the male, and the young from the parent bird of 

 the same species, than is genus from genus. From the above, 

 also, the naturalist may form a pretty good opinion of our 

 zoological riches, whilst some of the details into which I have 

 entered may prove entertaining to the general reader. 



One remark more ; many of our animals (whether quadru- 

 peds, birds, reptiles, or fishes) have no local English designations, 

 and all the names are either Spanish or French, some Indian ; 

 so that I have been induced to use such terms as I know to 

 prevail, either in the above languages, or in the English. 



BOTANY. 



OUTLINE OF THE FLORA OF TRINIDAD. 

 By Herman Criiger. 



Trinidad exhibits — if not on a grand scale, at least within 

 striking and well defined limits — the distinctive characteristics 



