KISHF.S. 505 



perienced fishermen. Tlie weapon with wliich nature has armed 

 this animal, which grows from the tail, and which we described 

 as barbed, and five inches long, hath been an instrument of ter- 

 ror to the ancient fishermen as well as the modem : and they 

 have delivered many tremendous fables of its astonishing effects. 

 Pliny, ^lian, and Oppian, have supplied it with a venom that 

 affects even the inanimate creation : trees that are struck by it 

 instantly lose their verdure, and rocks themselves are incapable 

 of resisting the potent poison. The enchantress Circe armed 

 her son with a spear headed with the spine of the trygon, as the 

 most irresistible weapon she could furnish him with ; a weapon 

 that soon after was to be the death of his own father. 



" That spears and darts," says Mr Pennant, " might in very 

 early times have been headed with this bone instead of iron, we 

 have no doubt. The Americans head their arrows with the 

 bones of fishes to this day ; and, from their hardness and sharp- 

 ness, they are no contemptible weapons. But that this spine is 

 possessed of those venomous qualities ascribed to it, we have 

 every reason to doubt ; though some men of high reputation, 

 and the whole body of fishermen, contend for its venomous 

 effects. It is, in fact, a weapon of offence belonging to this 

 animal, and capable, from its barbs, of inflicting a very terrible 

 wound, attended with dangerous symptoms ; but it cannot be 

 possessed of any poison, as the spine has no sheath to preserve 

 the supposed venom on its surface ; and the animal has no gland 

 that separates the noxious fluid : besides, all those animals that 

 are furnished with envenomed fangs or stings, seem to have 

 them strongly connected with their safety and existence ; they 

 never part with them ; there is an apparatus of poison prepared 

 in the body to accompany their exertions ; and when the fangs 

 or stings are taken away, the animal languishes and dies. Lut 

 it is otherwise with the spine of the fire flare ; it is fixed to the 

 tail, as a quill is into the tail of a fowl, and is annually shed in 

 the same manner : it may be necessary for the creature's defence, 

 but it is no way necessary for its existence. The wound in- 

 flicted by an animal's tail, has something terrible in the idea, and 

 may from thence alone be supposed to be fatal. From hence 

 terror might have added poison to the pain, and called uj) 

 imagined dangers : the Negroes universally believe that the 

 sting is poisonous ; but they never die of the wound ; for by 



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