454 TRINIDAD. 



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 poison- 

 ous, may be accidentally the cause of very serious sufferings. 

 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 distinguishing 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 enter- 

 taining to the general reader. 



One remark more ; many of our animals (whether quadrupeds, 

 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. 



