HILL — POISOHOTTS FISHES. 
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answered. Sir Kobert Schomburgk submitted some speci- 
mens of sprat from Barbados to the examination of the 
eminent naturalists Muller and Troschel, of Berlin, and all 
we learn is that the species seemed new. One was named 
Alosa Bishopi. u It agreed in some points with Alosa api- 
calis , known as the red-eared pilchard, it had, however, a 
black spot behind the operculum, not to be observed in the 
Alosa a'picalis .” Its length was that of our market sprat, 
four and-a-half inches. He adds : “ that the sprats are 
much esteemed in the West-Indian islands, but that a spe- 
cies called the yellow-tailed sprat proves, unfortunately, 
poisonous at certain periods of the year among the Leeward 
and Virgin Islands.” — (Hist, of Barbados, ch. iv., p. 675-6.) 
Goldsmith, speaking on Hr. Grainger’s authority, the 
author of the poem “ The Sugar-Cane” — “ his poor worthy 
friend,” as he calls him — mentioned that of the fish caught 
at one end of the Island of St. Christopher, some were the 
best and most wholesome in the world, while others, taken 
at a different end, were always dangerous and not uncom- 
monly fatal. He was speaking of fish in general, and of 
sprats in particular. Our own experience of sprats is very 
similar. The sprats taken on the south-side of Jamaica 
are only occasionally to be suspected, but those on the 
north- side, always. How far the distinctive black and yel- 
low spot prevails at those times and in those places, I have 
not learnt ; but in the Kingston market they consider the 
distinction not specific, but adventitious in one and the 
same species, so that our wonder at this quality goes fur- 
ther back than Goldsmith thought, if the poison of the 
larger fishes depended on their feeding on sprats. 
Among the fishes enumerated as poisonous in the divi- 
