TRACHINIDiE. 79 



When sea bathing, the possibility of receiving wounds from these fishes may 

 not unfrequently be a subject for bathers to dread, especially should the coast be 

 a sandy or gravelly one, such being the favourite localities for the weever to 

 reside in, and where it buries itself, leaving merely its head uncovered. Woe to 

 the unprotected foot that incautiously treads on one of these fishes, as when alarmed 

 they at once strike any foreign body with the spine with which their gill-cover is 

 armed, directing their blows, as Pennant observes, with as much judgment as 

 fighting cocks. A few months since, remarks R. Couch (Zoologist, 1846, p. 1402), 

 I saw a Trachinus draco which had just been caught, and as it lay at the bottom of 

 the boat I frequently threw some sea- water over it to keep it living, and then 

 irritated it with a stick. But whichever part of the body I touched it unerringly 

 struck it with its spines, by bending the body and throwing its head back with a 

 rapid jerk. 



In Banffshire* a man was wounded taking a large weever off a hook, and in 

 less than half-an-hour the whole of his hand was considerably swollen : the 

 swelling went on extending to the wrist, and the two middle fingers being more in 

 the line of the wound, were more swollen than the others. In about an hour the 

 hand had increased to twice its natural size. It was scarified by a surgeon, and 

 other means used, which arrested the progress of the attack ; the hand healed up 

 perfectly within a reasonable time. As a rule, the pain appears to subside in 

 about twelve hours, or as some fisherman imagine, the effects of the poison will 

 last until the tide returns to the [same height as it stood when the injury was 

 inflicted. But a sailor, having been wounded by what was supposed to be a 

 weever, his leg became painful and in the course of a few hours was much 

 swollen and inflamed, while many weeks elapsed before he was able to resume his 

 usual occupation.f 



Wherever shrimps abound weever fishes are said to be present, and shrimpers 

 in dark nights have been known to be afraid of picking their captures out of their 

 nets fearing lest one of these fishes might be among them. 



It is safest for bathers in localities where these fishes are found to take the 

 precaution of wearing bathing-slippers, because should they incautiously put a 

 foot upon a weever it may wound with the spines of the first dorsal fin, which it 

 can erect or depress at pleasure, or strike violently with its armed head. Great 

 pain is immediately experienced, and which rapidly spreads. Pliny and 

 Dioscorides advised that the body of the fish should be cut open and applied to 

 the wound, a process to which two objections may be fairly raised : first, the 

 necessity of capturing the fish, and secondly the improbability of any alleviation 

 following the employment of such a remedy. Paul of ^Egina's receipt would 

 hardly have much effect, it being to make the patient drink a light tisane 

 thickened by the brains of the culprit fish. Avicenna suggested a poultice of 

 leeks ; Rondelet, leaves of the lentiscus bruised ; while various animal and vegetable 

 substances soaked in vinegar or made into salves have been proposed. Cuvier 

 suggested as the most simple and surest cure to enlarge the wound caused by the 

 spine of one of these fishes. Fishermen occasionally recommend friction of the 

 part with sand, but surgeons have found that olive oil, to which opium has been 

 added, is most efficacious. At the mouth of the Tyne, where these fish are 

 numerous, Mr. Green observes (Science Gossip, 1873, p. 283) that shrimpers 

 generally carry a small bottle of sweet oil to apply in case they are stung. 



Geographical distribution. — From the coast of Scandinavia, through those of 

 Western Europe, the British Isles, and the Mediterranean ; also Madeira, and 

 along the western coast of Africa as far south as the Cape of Good Hope ; while 

 Kner recorded T. draco from Iquique in Peru. 



1. Trachinus draco, Plate XXX. 

 ApiiKwv, Arist. viii, c. 13 ; ^Elian, ii, c. 50. 



Arancus, Pliny, ix, c. 48. Draco marinus, Pliny, ix, c. 27; Salv. f. 71. 

 Draco, Rondel, x, c. 10, p. 300, c. fig. ; Aldrov. ii, c. 50. Draco marinus major, 



* Harris, Zoologist, 1854, p. 4260. f Briggs, Zoologist, 1854, July. 



