128 AC1PENSER HUSO. 



order to get rid at once of his lite and his distemper. Accordingly 

 he bought a good quantity of this poisonous fish, cut it in pieces, 

 and boiled it ; and in order, as he thought, to make the poison still 

 stronger, he took soot from the thatch and roof of his house and 

 mixed it with the rest. After dinner he laid himself down to die, 

 and soon falling mortally sick, he brought up, not only the poison 

 he had taken, but a large quantity of viscid matter, probably not the 

 least cause of his distemper, and by this means found life and 

 health in what he sought for death, for he recovered and was well 

 afterwards." 



Fish, considered as an article of food, is regarded as light and 

 easily digested, and therefore well suited to the young, the weak, and 

 the sedentary. Experience, however, shews that it affords a less 

 nourishing aliment than flesh, and is less easy of digestion and 

 assimilation. In some constitutions fish of the most wholesome 

 kind, such as salmon and turbot, disagrees with the stomach, pro- 

 ducing nausea, vomiting, pain in the bowels, febricula, and an erup- 

 tion on the skin resembling the nettle-rash. The conger-eel, 

 (Murama coiiger L.) the bonito, {Scomhcr pelamis.) the file-fish, 

 {Balistes monoceros,) the porcupine diodon (Diodon hy.sterix), the 

 rose-red sparus {Sparus pagurus,) and some others, are more espe- 

 cially liable to prove deleterious, and have been known, in many 

 instances, to cause very violent symptoms, and even death. 



ACIPENSER HUSO, 



The Great, or Isinglass Sturgeon. 

 Pl. XXI. 



Order Chondropterygii, Lin. Sturiones, Cuv. 



Gen. Char. Body elongated, and furnished, as well as 

 the head, with rows of bony prominenees ; mouth 

 placed under the snout, cylindrical, retractile, and 

 without teeth ; dm four, beneath the snout. 



