248 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



The question has been much agitated, without being positively 

 resolved, whether the Physalia are venomous or not : if they can kill 

 or make sick the man or animal which swallows them. Listen to the 

 opinions of M. Kicord-Madiana, a physician of Guadaloupe, who made 

 direct experiments with a view to settling the question. "Many 

 inhabitants of the Antilles," he says, "say that the 'galleys' are 

 poisonous, and that the negroes make use of them,, after being dried 

 and powdered, to poison both men and animals. The fishermen of 

 the islands also believe that fish which have swallowed them become 

 deleterious, and poison those that eat them, a prejudice which has been 

 adopted by many travellers, and has even found its way into scientific 

 books. We can state as the result of direct experiment, that though 

 the ' galley,' will burn the ignorant hand which is touched by its ten- 

 tacles, when dried in the sun and pulverized, it becomes mere grains of 

 dead matter, producing no effect whatever upon the animal economy." 



On the other hand, we read in P. Labat's Voyage, vol. ii. p. 31, 

 " that the becune should not be eaten without some precaution, for 

 this fish being extremely voracious, greedily devours all that comes 

 within its reach in and out of the water, and it often happens that it 

 meets and swallows ' galleys,' which are very caustic, and a violent 

 poison. The fish does not die, but its flesh absorbs the venom, and 

 poisons those who eat it." "There is every reason to believe," says 

 M. Leblond, in the work already quoted, " that the sardine, as well as 

 many other species of fish, after having ate the tentacles of the ' galley,' 

 acquires a poisonous quality. Supping at an auberge on one occasion, 

 with other persons, a becune was served up, of which gastronomers 

 are very fond, and which is usually perfectly harmless : five persons 

 partook of it, and immediately afterwards exhibited every symptom of 

 being poisoned. This was manifested by a burning heat in the region 

 of the stomach. I bled two of them : one was cured by vomiting ; 

 one other would take nothing but tea and some culinary oil. The colic 

 continued during the night, and had disappeared in the morning, but 

 he entertained so great a horror of water, that during the remainder 

 of the voyage a glass of it presented to him made him turn pale." 

 M. Leblond concludes, from Jhis and other facts, that the fishes which 

 eat the Physalia become a poison, for those who eat them, although it 

 does not appear that he had any evidence of the fish having ate the 

 " galley," or any other poison. 



