8o THE COMMERCIAL SEA FISHES OF 



and the intense suffering which they occasion. As a rule 

 the pain appears to subside in about twelve hours, or, as 

 some fishermen imagine, the effects of the poison will 

 continue until the tide returns to the same height at which 

 it stood when the injury was inflicted. Wherever shrimps 

 abound these fish are said to be present, and shrimpers in 

 dark nights have been known to be afraid of picking their 

 captures out of their nets, fearing lest one of these fishes 

 might be among them. Olive oil and opium, locally applied, 

 have been found the best applications. 



Geographical distribution. From the coasts of Scandi- 

 navia, through the Atlantic as far south as the Cape of 

 Good Hope ; also the Mediterranean. One species has 

 been recorded from Peru. 



I. Greater Weever (Trachinus draco). 



Names. Weever is asserted to be a corruption of the 

 French term La vive, which this fish was called, owing to its 

 surviving for a long period after removal from the water. It 

 has likewise been derived from the Anglo-Saxon wivere, 

 "a serpent," the wivern being the dragon of heraldry. 

 Rondelet believed it to represent the true dragon of the 

 older naturalists. In Sussex it is locally known as the sea- 

 cat, also as cat-fish and sting-bull. Sand-eel-bill, Ayrshire. 

 Muckle-stanger, Aberdeen. 



B. vi., D. 5-6 | 29-31, V. i A. 31, L. 1. 78, Caec. pyl. vi., 

 Vert. -H-. 



Length of head 4^ ; height of body Si to 6\ in the total 

 length. Eye. 5 to $\ diameters in the length of the 

 head ; f of a diameter from the end of the snout, and 

 the same apart. Dorsal profile nearly horizontal, that of 

 the abdomen more convex. Cleft of mouth very oblique, 

 reaching to slightly behind the posterior edge of the eye ; 



