460 
plint's natural history. 
[Book IX. 
which is even poisonous by the very touch, and immediately 
produces vomiting and disarrangement of the stomach. In 
our seas it has the appearance of a shapeless mass, and only 
resembles the hare in colour ; in India it resembles it in its 
larger size, and in its hair, which is only somewhat coarser : 
there it is never taken alive. An equally deadly animal is the 
sea-spider, which is especially dangerous for a sting which it 
has on the back : but there is nothing that is more to be dreaded 
than the sting which protrudes from the tail of the trygon,*^^ 
by our people known as the pastinaca, a weapon five inches in 
length. Fixing this in the root of a tree, the fish is able to 
kill it ; it can pierce armour too, just as though with an arrow, 
and to the strength of iron it adds all the corrosive qualities of 
poison. 
CHAP. 73. (49.) — THE MALADIES OP PISHES. 
"We do not find it stated that all kinds of fishes are subject 
to epizootic diseases,'''^ like other animals of a wild nature : 
the muzzle and ears of the hare, closely enough to have caused this appellation. 
As its smell is disagreeable, and its figure repulsive, a multitude of mar- 
vellous, and indeed fatal qualities, he says, have been ascribed to this animal, 
which fishermen still speak of, but which, nevertheless, are not confirmed by 
actual experience. The only true fact that can be alleged against it is, 
that it secretes from an organ, situate in its body, a kind of acrid liquid. 
As to the Indian sea-hare, the body of which was covered with hair, Cuvier 
professes himself quite at a loss to know what it might be ; but he thinks 
that this name must have been given to some tetrodon, which may have 
received the name from the cleft in the jaw and the skin, bristling with fine 
and minute spines. The sailors, he says, attribute to the tetrodon certain 
venomous properties. 
^8 Cuvier says, that there is reason to believe that this is the same as 
the vive of the French (probably our weever), the Trachinus draco of 
Linnffius. This creature, with the spiny projections of its first dorsal fin, 
is able to infiict wounds that are extremely difficult to cure ; not because 
they are venomous in any degree, but because the extremities being very 
minute, sharp, and pointed, penetrate deep into the flesh. See c. 43 of 
this Book. 
Or sting-ray, mentioned in c 40 and c. 67 of this Book; so called 
from the Greek rpvycjv. Cuvier says, that this sting, or spine, is sharp, 
like a saw ; and that when it has penetrated the flesh, it cannot be got out 
without enlarging the wound. This it is, and not its fancied poisonous 
qualities, that renders its wound so dangerous ; and as for its action upon 
trees and iron, they are entirely fabulous. 
No(7J7/Aara Xoi/ia»^»2, as Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 25, calls 
them. 
