THE LUMINOUS SCOPELUS. 



329 



The CHAER (Salmo salvelinus), the well-known and delicately flavoured SMELT (Osmerus 

 eperlanus), called also the SPIRLTNG or SPARLING, the GRAYLING (Thymallus vulgaris), the 

 VENDACE (Goregonus Willoughbii), and the ARGENTINE (Scopelus Humboldtii), so useful for 

 bait, all belong to the same family as the salmon and the trout. 



The PIRAYA, or PIRAI, has been removed from the salmonidae and placed in another 

 family on account of certain structural differences. 



This fish is very plentiful in the rivers of Guiana and Brazil, where it swims in large 

 troops, and is, according to many accounts, a very unpleasant neighbour. It is a most 

 voracious being, with teeth nearly as sharply edged as those of the shark, and a boldness 

 little short of that fish's well-known audacity. It is said, according to Spix, that if 



PIRAYA. Serraxal 



even so large an animal as an ox happens to get into one of their shoals, it is immediately 

 assailed, and bitten so severely that it may succumb under its injuries before it can 

 cross a stream thirty or forty feet in width. According to some authors, one of the 

 South American tribes are in the habit of placing their dead in the streams, leaving them 

 to the attacks of the Piraya, which in a single night will clear away the whole of the soft 

 parts, and leave a clean skeleton ready for their peculiar mode of sepulture. Even living 

 human beings seem to enjoy no immunity from this hungry fish, but to be liable to severe 

 bites while bathing, 



Be these stories literally true, or only exaggerations of reality, the jaws and teeth of 

 the Piraya are perfectly capable of inflicting such injuries as have been briefly described. 

 The teeth are nearly flat, triangular, and with edges sharp as those of lancets, and are 

 employed by the Macoushi Indians to sharpen the points of those fearful wourali- 

 poisoned arrows so well known to fame since they were brought by Mr. Waterton from 

 Guiana. A part of the jaw containing five or six teeth is carefully cleansed, a hole is bored 

 through the jaw-bone, and a string is passed through the hole and fastened to the edge of 

 the quiver. The arrows are readily sharpened by placing the points between any two 

 teeth and drawing them rapidly through the edges. There are now before me several 

 of these arrows, kindly given me by Mr. Watertoa, and which have been sharpened by 

 this process. 



IN a neighbouring family is placed a very remarkable fish, called the LUMINOUS 

 SCOPELUS (Scopelus stelldfas). 



