OTHER FISH. 
137 
of us would have gone in, after seeing those 
seventeen. 
The piranha belongs to the Characinidce, the 
same family as the dorado; and to the group 
Serrasalmonina; though I do not know why 
such a horrible beast has been given a name 
which argues kinship to the salmon. There are 
some forty different species, and apparently 
several have the same unpleasant habits. 
I have said that bathing on the Parana is 
safe. So it is, if you keep to the rock or sand. 
But do not on any account go near the mud, 
for in the mud lives a ray, fetid brown and 
sickly yellow in colour, with a sting in his tail 
like an immense thorn. They tell you he can 
kill a horse; and I should be sorry for the man 
who stepped on one. Our captain speared one 
to show us, and he looked the embodiment of 
evil, as though he had been spewed up from 
some loathsome under-world. When brought 
on deck he drove his sting into a board. 
But these two, the piranha and the ray, are 
but slight drawbacks to that wonderful river 
with its wonderful fish. When there you feel 
that any adventure might come out of it. You 
would be surprised at nothing. Perhaps some¬ 
one who reads this book will go there. Let him 
spend some time, say six weeks from the middle 
of October, and try for all its fish. Let him 
take tackle of every sort: for dorado, as has 
been told; a trout rod, even flies for small fish; 
