THE LUMINOUS SCOPELUS. 



283 



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

 troops, and is, according to many accounts, a very unpleasant neighbor. It is a most vora- 

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

 short of that fish's well-knowTi audacity. It is said, according to Spix, that if 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 nnder its injuries before it can cross a stream thirty or 

 forty feet in width. Accoi-ding to some autliors, 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 himgry fish, but to be liable to severe bites while bathing. 



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

 Piraya are perfectly capable of infiicting such injuries as have been briefly described. The 



GRAYLING.- Thymallus rulgaris. CHAER.-6Wf«o sa/ielinus. 



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

 by the Macoushi Indians to shai-pen 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 ai'e 

 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. 

 Waterton, and which have been sharpened by this process. 



In a neighboring family is placed a very remarkable fish, called tlie Luminous Scopelus 

 {Scojyelus stelldtus). 



The fish which is represented in the illustration on page 285, majM'airly take rank as 

 one of the oddities of the finny race. 



Flat-headed, round-bodied, and strong-scaled, with projecting eyes of most remarkable 



