NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



149 



the chief difference was, that it had a few cartilaginous substances, 

 Hke plates, about its body. 



The Palmeto, so called from its resemblance to a spatula, is a broad 

 and flat fish, remarkable for very thorny fins. The wounds inflicted by 

 them are said to be dangerous, and probably may be so when they strike a 

 tendon, in a part of the world where the nervous system is peculiarly irrita- 

 ble. I was, however, once wounded by this fish, soon after it was taken, 

 and experienced no ill consequences. 



We once caught a Zurubi, the skin of which was smooth, of a 

 reddish cast, and covered with irregular black spots, like a leopard. 

 The head was formed much Mke that of a cod ; but large as is the pro- 

 portion of a cod's head to the body, that of the Zurubi is still larger. 

 At the jole our specimen was nearly circular, and at least two feet round. 

 The body decreased in such a way as might lead us to expect a length of 

 five or six feet, but, at the distance of two, it suddenly terminated in a 

 short and imperfect tail. So strange to us was its form, that we were 

 almost disposed to imagine that the fish had, by some accident, lost a 

 considerable portion of its body, and that a new tail, dissimilar, in some 

 respects, to its natural one, had been produced. We even fancied that 

 this conclusion was favoured by the position of the anus, which was 

 unusually backward. But this, I have since learned, is the natural form 

 of a large class of fishes, found in the Plata, 



The Peixes Reyes, very common on these coasts, and well known 

 from the measure in which they furnish an allowed provision for days of 

 abstinence, frequently became our prey ; and we readily concurred in the 

 general estimation in which they are held. We met, also, with the Pacu, 

 a fish of the same species, but far inferior in its quality, and disgusting in 

 its appearance. 



The Boca, as the Brazilian sailors call it, is in shape a broad oval, 

 and weighs three or four pounds. It has a fleshy mouth of a bright rose 

 colour, large scales, and remarkably broad blunt teeth. It is taken in 

 abundance on all the coasts of this country, and is good eating, both 

 when fresh and when cut in slices and dried in the sun, in which way it is 



