413 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



recitals of poisonous fish. There are some, says Julian, 

 in an Armenian stream, which are black, hut not un- 

 palatable in flavour, whereof if any man or beast do 

 but taste, he immediately dies : i]v Si n rovrav yevar)- 

 Tat rj avBpayiro'i ^ OrjpCov Trapd'XpTjfia airoKKvrai. He 

 adds, that as the land is overrun with wild beasts, the 

 Armenians, having previously dried these fish, knead 

 them up into flour, and so poison aU kinds of animals 

 by laying pellets of the paste in their track. He fur- 

 ther adds, that, in grinding these fish into powder, the 

 huntsmen take the precaution to tie something over both 

 mouth and nose during the operation, lest a pinch of the 

 powder merely snified up should prove fatal to them. 

 Every beast which eats ever so small a pellet of this 

 paste, speedily dies. PHny mentions the same fact on 

 the authority of Ctesias ; and further, that some fish 

 near the soiu'ce of the Danube are reputed equally fatal; 

 also that ' the self-same accident as touching fish is re- 

 ported of a pool in Lydia, called of the nymphs.' Theo- 

 phrastus states, that in an Arcadian stream both the 

 water and the small fish that inhabit it are extremely 

 deadly ; this last author, besides poisonous, speaks also of 

 fish possessing other singular qualities of flesh : thus at the 

 isle of Pela and city of Clazominae, they are all bitter ; 

 while those about Scylla, in Sicily, are contrariwise sweet ; 

 some species near Cephalonia, Paros, and Ampelos, axe 

 so salt that they may be taken for salted fish; all which 

 diversities of flavour he attributes, we know not how 

 truly, to diversities in their food. 



formed our inoredulity that this was the common way of dealing 

 with quaco and baracouda in some of the Leeward Islands. This 

 communication took place before the Emancipation Act, since 

 which period, we have not heard what plan has been adopted 

 by "V^est Indian proprietors, to eat this ' anceps cibum' in comfort 

 and security. 



