228 PROCEEDINGS OP THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION* 
the great submarine plateau, the odour of the slime and 
of the spermatic substances that find a resting-place in the 
crevices and shallow pools spread through it, is very re^- 
markable. You approach it from the east and find the 
cheering blandness of the sea breeze suddenly changing to 
the nauseating smell of a fish-market. Those who have 
waded on to our shore -reefs know not only the strong 
scent given out by the polyps that build there, but feel 
how sensibly the hands are affected, — and how the skin of 
the thighs is susceptible of a stinging influence from the 
slightest contact with the slime of corals — ( vide Gosse’s 
11 Naturalists' Sojourn in Jamaica," page 54). It has been 
found by invariable experience that all the fishes taken on 
the Formigas are pernicious ; that the baracoutas especi- 
ally are always poisonous, at least in those months when 
the Formigas may be sailed over in unbroken water. Simi- 
lar stretches of shoals among the Bahamas produce fishes 
similarly deleterious as food. The low-spreading ledges 
and banks of the Virgin-Islands, called the Anegadas, or 
the Drowned Islands, afford a similar unfavorable ground 
for fishing. In this way we may account for the remark 
of Dr. Grainger that fishes are poisonous at one end of St. 
Christopher, while they are harmless at another. The 
deep water shoals are not the resort of the star-fish, nor of 
any of the Echinodermata. They are, therefore, exempt 
from their evil influences. I do not know whether it be a 
fact consistent with experience, — but fishes of the deep- 
water fish-pots ought always to be safe eating. 
We get over, by these several incidents of our fishing- 
grounds, the adventitious occurrence of poisonous among 
wholesome fishes. Some have a natural pernicious charac- 
