1 54 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



is fishy. Some people compare it to excellent 

 veal — dui tastes differ ! In the upper jaw of its 

 curiously shaped mouth, it has, besides molars, 

 large incisors with which it drags up the long 

 leaves of the sub-aquatic vegetation whereon it 

 browses exactly like a cow. 



Of edible fresh-water fish there are very many. 

 The pirai, or piranha, is a kind of salmon, brilliant 



COW-FIfH, OR MANATEE, 



green and rose-coloured, flat-bodied like a bream, 

 but saw-toothed like a shark, averaging 5 lbs. in 

 weight, and so ravenous and indiscriminate in its 

 tastes that it attacks the legs of human beings 

 wading near the shore. 



Then there is a fish called pescddo (cod), whose 

 flesh when boiled is like that of cod. A delicious 

 fish known as curimatd, and the tucunare, hand- 



