STING RAA’. 
131 
Pliny remarks how much the poisonous effects of such an 
injury are to he dreaded. 
But the ancients had not learned to distinguish between those 
effects of an injury, which for the most arise from diseased 
influences existing in the person who suffered, and those pro- 
duced by a poison inserted into a wound from the instrument 
inflicting it. The bite of the adder is of the latter kind; but 
observation has not confirmed the opinion formerly so Avidely 
spread, of the poison communicated by the dart of the Sting 
Ray; the injury from which is more properly ascribed to the 
jagged nature of the Avounds scattered over a broad surface of 
the skin. The firmness of the structure of this dart forms also 
a material portion of its powers; for the numerous points along 
its sides are in a reversed direction; so that when it has pene- 
trated the flesh it cannot be withdrawn Avithout the enlargement 
of the wound. 
A narratiA'e given by .®lian will shew some of its formidable 
effects from this cause, and also afford another explanation of 
the greater terror felt concerning it, where the people were 
generally ignorant of natural phenomena. A man had con- 
trived to filch away from the net of a fisherman a Sting Ray, 
which he had mistaken for a Turbot; and which he hastened 
to sell in the market. It was concealed under his clothes; 
and feeling some uneasiness in the part of his body where the 
fish lay, he pressed it so much the closer. The story appears 
to sheAV that in his haste he fell to the ground, by which 
accident the dart was driven into his body; for he was found 
dead, with the dart piercing to his boAvels, which protruded 
through the wound; and by this circumstance, in the opinion 
of the people, the fatal nature of this instrument became still 
more positively confirmed. 
We need not feel surprised at finding poetry and romance 
uniting their powers to spread abroad the opinions and feelings 
thus existing in the public mind; and accordingly the brief 
notices recorded by Pliny are thus expanded in the poetry of 
Oppian; in his account of which he unites the Sword Pish 
with the Sting Ray: — 
The Fireflair’s tail its venom’d shaft contains;— 
Nor time, nor waste the poisonous treasure drains. 
