CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 



635 



This method of catching fish is obviously 

 fatiguing, and dangerous ; but the value of the 

 capture generally repays the pains. The 

 skate and the thorn-back are very good food, 

 and their size, which is from ten pounds to 

 two hundred weight, very well rewards the 

 trouble of fishing for them. But it sometimes 

 happens that the lines are visited by very un- 

 welcome intruders; by the rough ray, the 

 fire-flare, or the torpedo. To all these the 

 fishermen have the most mortal antipathy; 

 and, when discovered, shudder at the sight: 

 however, they are not always so much upon 

 their guard, but that they sometimes feel the 

 different resentments of this angry tribe ; and, 

 instead of a prize, find they have caught a 

 vindictive enemy. When such is the case, 

 they take care to throw them back into the 

 sea with the swiftest expedition. 



The rough ray inflicts but slight wounds 

 with the prickles with which its whole body 

 is furnished. To the ignorant it seems harm- 

 less, and a man would at first sight venture to 

 take it in his hand, without any apprehension; 

 but he soon finds, that there is not a single 

 part of its body that is not armed with spines; 

 and that there is no way of seizing the ani- 

 mal, but by the little fin at the end of the tail. 



But this animal is harmless, when compared 

 to the fire-flare, which seems to be the dread 

 of even the boldest and most experienced 

 fishermen. The weapon with which nature 

 has armed this animal, which grows from the 

 tail, and which we described as barbed, and 

 five inches long, hath been an instrument of 

 terror to the ancient fishermen as well as the 

 modern : and they have delivered man tre- 

 mendous fables of its astonishing effects. 

 Pliny, JElian, and Oppian, have supplied it 

 with a venom that affects even the inanimate 

 creation : trees that are struck by it instantly 

 lose their verdure, and rocks themselves are 

 incapable of resisting the potent poison. The 

 enchantress Circe armed her son with a spear 

 headed with the spine of the trygon, as the 

 most irresistible weapon she could furnish him 

 with; a weapon that soon after was to be 

 the death of his own father. 



" That spears and darts," says Mr. Pennant, 



The account of the venomous properties of this spine, 

 ai well as that it is shed annually, appears to be altogether 

 NO. 53 & 54. 



might in very early times have been headed 

 with this bone instead of iron, we have no 

 doubt. The Americans head their arrows 

 with the bones of fishes to this day ; and, from 

 their hardness and sharpness, they are no con- 

 temptible weapons. But that this spine is pos- 

 sessed of those venomous qualities ascribed 

 to it, we have every reason to doubt; though 

 some men of high reputation, and the whole 

 body of fishermen, contend for its venomous 

 effects. It is, in fact, a weapon of offenc"e be- 

 longing to this animal and capable, from its 

 barbs, of inflicting a very terrible wound, at- 

 tended with dangerous symptoms ; but it can- 

 not be possessed of any poison, as the spine 

 has no sheath to preserve the supposed ve- 

 nom on its surface; and the animal has no 

 gland that separates the noxious fluid : besides, 

 all those animals that are furnished with en- 

 venomed fangs or stings, seem to have them 

 strongly connected with their safety and ex- 

 istence ; they never part with them ; there is 

 an apparatus of poison prepared in the body 

 to accompany their exertions; and when the 

 fangs or stings are taken away, the animal 

 languishes and dies. But it is otherwise with 

 the spine of the fire-flare; it is fixed to the 

 tail, as a quill is into the tail of a fowl, and is 

 annually shed in the same manner: it may be 

 necessary for the creature's defence, but it is 

 noway necessary for its existence. The wound 

 inflicted by an animal's tail, has something 

 terrible in the idea, and may from thence 

 alone be supposed to be fatal. From hence 

 terror might have added poison to the pain, 

 and called up imagined dangers: the negroes 

 universally believe that the sting is poisonous; 

 but they never die of the wound ; for by open- 

 ing the fish, and laying it to the part injured, 

 it effects a speedy cure. The slightness of 

 the remedy proves the innocence of the wound." 

 The Torpedo is an animal of this kind, 

 equally formidable and well known with the 

 former; but the manner of its operating is to 

 this hour a mystery to mankind. The body 

 of this fish is almost circular, and thicker than 

 others of the ray kind ; the skin is soft, smooth, 

 and of a yellowish colour, marked, as all the 

 kind, with large annular spots; the eves very 



fabulous. It is probable that, by its great strength, it 

 may be able to inflict a painfully lacerated wound. 

 4X 



