324 



HISTORY Ol- FISHES. 



liberty. Thus that cheerful luminary not 

 only distributes health and vegetation to the 

 productions of the earth, but is ardently 

 sought even by the gelid inhabitants of the 

 water. 



As fish are enemies one to another, so each 

 species is infested with worms of different 

 kinds peculiar to itself. The great fish 

 abound with them ; and the little ones are not 

 entirely free. These troublesome vermin 

 lodge themselves either in the jaws and the 

 intestines internally, or near the fins without. 

 When fish are healthy and fat they are not 

 much annoyed by them ; but in winter, when 

 they are lean or sickly, they then suffer very 

 much. 



Nor does the reputed longevity of this class 

 secure them from their peculiar disorders. 

 They are not only affected by too much cold, 

 but there are frequently certain dispositions 

 of the element in which they reside unfavour- 

 able to their health and propagation. Some 

 ponds they will not breed in, however artfully 

 disposed for supplying them with fresh 

 recruits of water, as well as provisions. In 

 some seasons they are found to feel epidemic 

 disorders, and are seen dead by the water 

 side, without any apparent cause : yet still 

 they are animals of all others the most viva- 

 cious, and they often live and subsist upon such 

 substances as are poisonous to the more per- 

 fect classes of animated nature. 



It is not easy to determine whether the 

 poisonous qualities which many of them are 

 found to possess, either when they wound our 

 bodies externally with their spines, or when 

 they are unwarily eaten at our tables, arises 

 from this cause. That numbers of fishes in- 

 flict poisonous wounds, in the opinion of many, 

 cannot be doubted. The concurrent testimony 

 of mankind they think sufficient to contradict 

 any reasonings upon this head, taken from 

 anatomical inspection. The great pain that 

 is felt from the sting given by the back fin of 

 the weaver, bears no proportion to the small- 

 ness of the instrument that inflicts the wound. 

 How the poison is preserved, or how it is con- 

 veyed by the animal, it is not in our power to 

 perceive ; but its actual existence has been 

 often attested by painful experience. In this 

 instance we must decline conjecture, satisfied 

 with history. 



The fact of their being poisonous when 

 eaten, is equally notorious ; and the cause 

 equally inscrutable. My poor worthy friend, 

 Dr Grainger, who resided for many years at 

 St Christopher's, assured me, that of the fish 

 caught, of the same kind, at one end of the 

 island, some were the best and most wholesome 

 in the world ; while others taken at a different 

 end were always dangerous, and most com- 

 monly fatal. We have a paper in the Philo- 



sophical Transactions, giving an account of 

 the poisonous qualities of those found at New 

 Providence, one of the Bahama islands. The 

 author assures us, that the greatest part of the 

 fish of that dreary coast are all of a deadly 

 nature : their smallest effects being to bring 

 on a terrible pain in the joints, which, if ter- 

 minating favourably, leaves the patient without 

 any appetite for several days after. It is not 

 those of the most deformed figure, or the most 

 frightful to look at, that are alone to be dread- 

 ed ; all kinds, at different times, are alike dan- 

 gerous ; and the same species which has this 

 day served for nourishment, is the next, if 

 tried, found to be fatal ! 



This noxious quality has given rise to much 

 speculation, and many conjectures. Some 

 have supposed it to arise from the fishes on 

 these shores eating of the manchineel apple, a 

 deadly vegetable poison, that sometimes grows 

 pendent over the sea ; but the quantity of those 

 trees growing in this manner, bears no pro- 

 portion to the extensive infection of the fish. 

 Labat has ascribed it to their eating the gal- 

 ley-iish, which is itself most potently poisonous: 

 but this only removes our wonder a little 

 farther back; for it maybe asked, with as 

 just a cause for curiosity, how comes the gal- 

 ley-fish itself to procure its noxious qualities <: 

 Others have ascribed the poison of these fishes 

 to their feeding upon copperas-beds : but I 

 do not know of any copper-mines found in 

 America. In short, as we cannot describe the 

 alembic by which the rattlesnake distils its 

 malignity, nor the process by which the scor- 

 pion, that lives among roses, converts their 

 sweets to venom, so we cannot discover the 

 manner by which fishes become thus danger- 

 ous ; and it is well for us of Europe that we 

 can thus wonder in security. It is certain 

 that with us, if fishes, such as carp or tench, 

 acquire any disagreeable flavour from the lakes 

 in which they have been bred, this can be re- 

 moved, by their being kept some time in finer 

 and better water: there they soon clear away 

 all those disagreeable qualities their flesh had 

 contracted, and become as delicate as if they 

 had been always fed in the most cleanly man- 

 ner. But this expedient is with us rather the 

 precaution of luxury than the effect of fear : we 

 have nothing to dread from the noxious quali- 

 ties of our fish; for all the animals our waters 

 furnish are wholesome. 



Happy England! where the sea furnishes 

 an abundant and luxurious repast, and the 

 fresh waters an innocent and harmless pastime; 

 where the angler, in cheerful solitude, strolls 

 by the edge of the stream, and fears neither 

 the coiled snake, nor the lurking crocodile ; 

 where he can retire at night, with his few 

 trotits (to borrow the pretty description of old 

 Walton) to some friendly cottage, where the 



