THE ANNALS 
AND 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
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3 
XX.—On the Stinging property of the Lesser Weever-fish 
(Trachinus Vipera.) By Greorcre Jamus ALLMAN, Esq. 
In a Letter to Wm. Tuomvson, Esq., Vice-Pres. Natural 
History Society of Belfast. 
My Dear Sir, 
I wAve lately had an opportunity of making some observa- 
tions on the reputed stinging power of the Lesser Weever 
(Trachinus Vipera), and the result, I think, may tend to clear 
up a point with respect to which much difference has pre- 
vailed among naturalists. The older naturalists seem almost 
universally to coincide with the popular opinion entertained 
respecting this little fish, and to agree in ascribing venomous 
908A to the wounds inflicted with its spines. There can 
little doubt that the fishes to which the ancients gave the 
names Araneus, Draco, Dracunculus, and probably some 
- others, were the Greater and Lesser Weevers of our coasts ; 
and to those they invariably attribute poisonous properties. 
Pliny accuses the Araneus of inflicting dangerous wounds with 
the spines of its back. After speaking of a poisonous fish 
which he calls Lepus, he says, “ AXque pestiferum animal 
araneus, spine in dorso aculeo noxius*.” In another place, 
speaking of Dracunculus, he tells us that it inflicts poisoned 
wounds with the spines of the opercula: “ Aculeos in branchiis 
habet ad caudam spectantes, sic ut scorpio ledit dum manu 
tollitur+.” Similar properties areattributed to the dorsal spines 
of these fishes by Ailian and Oppian. In the following pas- 
sage from the Halieutics several spinous fishes are grouped 
together, all of which are described by the poet as inflicting 
poisoned wounds, though some of them are undoubtedly in- 
nocuous, and classed here with venomous fishes, for the same 
reason which induces our own fishermen to attribute to the 
Bandon, August 20, 1840. 
* Hist. Naturalis, ix. 72. 4 Ibid. xxxii. 53. 
Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. Nov. 1840. M 
