INJURIOUS MARINE ANIMAL. 
BY 
Henry Tryon. 
(Presented 2nd February, 1893). 
The Townsville Bulktin of the 17th January, 1885, records- 
the death of a boy named Kiernan, who, it is stated, 
succumbed within five or six minutes from the time that 
attention was attracted by his screams, from having whilst 
bathing come into contact “ with some marine monster.” When 
first noticed, he was covered with a substance somewhat 
resembling cobwebs,” and his right side “ was marked with 
purple weals, as if he had been beaten severely with a sharp thong.” 
This incident was, it would appear, not a solitary one, for (to 
quote my authority), “ the circumstances of this case show 
that it is a repetition of the one which occurred some short 
time back at Ross Island.” On the 26th January, and on the 
23rd February, 1885, the same journal also published further 
instances of the very serious consequences resulting from contact 
with some marine animal to bathers in the sea there, the 
patients being reported as having seared lines upon their skins,, 
and exhibiting pronounced constitutional disturbances. 
Being persuaded that the matter required investigation, that 
the medical practitioner might liave something on which to base 
his treatment, should the m^gency of the symptoms arising in 
future cases demand his intervention, opportunity for prosecuting 
the needful inquiry has been long looked for. Recently a bather 
at Cleveland, as we have been informed by the local press, has 
had still another of these painful encounters, with what in his 
case has been styled an “ electric eel,” and this circumstance, 
affording the occasion desired, has prompted these remarks. 
Mr. H. Moar, the afflicted party in this case, informs me 
that, whilst resident at Cleveland, Moreton Bay, he was 
bathing, at about six o’clock on the morning of 15th January, 
in an enclosure, the walls of which — somewhat out of 
