i30 



PERCH. 



deceived, Mr. Catejhy does not account for the caufe of the poifon j 

 but gives a fad which leads to an explanation. He once procured a 

 diver to bring up fome of the beautiful corals, which grow at the 

 rocky bottoms of the fhallow fea round the Bahama ides. They are of 

 unfpeakable clearnefs, and Ihew, even at the depth of twenty fathonns, 

 a moll charming variety of groves of corals, keretophytes, aftroitse, 

 and fhells, animated with multitudes of fifhes of the moft glowing co- 

 lors fporting among them. Many of the corals and fea plants are 

 covered with a mucilaginous fubftance, which Catejby calls the coral 

 in a foft and imperfedt ftate ; it is in fa£t the fpawn of fifh j a part 

 often poifonous, when the fifh itftlf is poifonous ; witnefs that of the 

 Englijh Barbel. The diver brought up fome of the corals thus be- 

 flimed, and, to clean his hands from it, rubbed them on his belly» . 

 He was fuddenly taken with moft acute pains, and fking himfelf on 

 the fands in moft diftrafted poftures, till the pains left him, which 

 was in about a quarter of an hour. There may be other animals which 

 have noxious qualities, fuch as the fpecies of Mollujca, called Laplyjia, 

 Medtifa, and Holothuria-, which may depofit their fpawn on the fea 

 plants. The fifti who haunt thofe places, greedily feed on itj receive 

 the deleterious qualities, which often prove of fuch bad effeft to the 

 perfons who, happen to eat of them ; while the very fame fpecies of fifh, 

 which has happened to feed in parts of the fea free from this poifon- 

 ous fubftance, are eaten with the utmoft fafety, 



Poifonous fifti are not peculiar to thofe feas. Doftor Forjter, and 

 others,, the companions of Captain Cook's fecond voyage, fufFered fe- 

 verely by eating, in the South Seas, the Sparus Erythrinus, a fifh quite in- 

 nocent in the Mediterranean* . A new fpecies of Tetrodcn, taken in the 

 fame feas, had fimilar efFedts. The Tenije of Japan, the Tetrodon ocel^ 

 toaj of LiNN^us, is a poifon that bafHes all remedy: it is in that 

 country die refort of filicides. The fatal qualities lie in the inteftineSj. 

 and fome other parts, which are carefully flung away before it is drefTed 



* Forjier's Vaj/. ii. 2.37, 



3;. Strange 



