286 PROCEEDINGS O-E THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION'. 
plupart fournissent un aliment agreable et de facile diges- 
tion.” Speaking of the gyrinus and guavina specially, two 
of the gobies, he says of the first, “ 1’espece est tres-estime d 
St. Domingue, surtout pour les malades;” and of the se- 
cond, “ repandue dans toutes les rivieres de File de Cube, 
elle atteint dix-huit 4 vingt-deux pouces de longueur, et on 
Vestime beaucouyp comme aliment .” — (Cuvier et Yalen. Hist.- 
des Poissons, vol. xii., liv. xiv., ch. xiv.-) The flesh of all 
is truly savoury and nourishing, and very digestible. 
If notices of any peculiarity in the qualities of the fish 
generally brought into the markets, were communicated, 
they would form a body of important information to the 
public and the naturalist. 
I must not omit to remark, it has sometimes happened 
that fishes have contracted a prejudicial quality, by being 
covered over in the baskets, in which they are carried for 
sale, with the leaves of poisonous shrubs. Instances of 
many such occurrences could be readily quoted. On these 
occasions fishes get qualities assigned them which do not 
belong to them. 
In the year 1863 our Jamaica newspapers for some weeks 
discussed cases of fish-poison that had occurred on the North 
side of the Island, in which thirteen persons died. The 
facts were simply these. From the coast fishes fried and 
prepared as convenient articles for the plantation labourers 
to carry into the field for their morning repast, had found 
a ready market among the work-people of an estate some 
seven miles from the shore where the fishes had been taken. 
They were all Labroid fishes,- — the usually splendid fishes 
called Parrot fish. From specimens I procured, they were 
the Scarus Chysopterus of Cuvier and Valenciennes : — light 
