Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1877 — Queer Fishes. [ARTICLE]

Queer Fishes.

The waters of South America are inhabited by a great variety of curious fishes. A sportsman throwing his line into any pool or stream in the warm latitudes will be apt to find rising to his bait a succession of queer species which it trill be impossible to name and very difficult to handle. From an Island at the entrance to-the harbor of Cape St. Vincent Sir Rose Lambert Price once had an experience of this sort, which be relates with a mod deal of spirit Ralls of paste made of mashed crab were first thrown into the sea to attract the fish, and the hooks were then baited with the legs of cmbe or with barnacles. Success was immediate, and the strange captures made elicited a continuous fire of ejaculations. “ Nearly all the fish,” writes Sir Rose, “ were of different varieties, and had we been unattended by MAh ‘ darkies,’ I am confident some of have been hurt, if not seriously injured, by the fish in unhooking them, as nearly all were armed with some description of prickle. Many of their prickiee were poisonous, and all of them bit like mad at everything within reach on coming out of the

' briny.’ A handsome red fish, about two pounds in weight, and something like a perch, called by M. ‘the king of the seas,' was the best eating of the lot, and well mef|te(| his .proud appellation, as a finerflaVprt d one I have seldom tasted. A blaik, uglyvlooking thing, about a pound injteightj was called the soap-fish, and was uneatabT&Y but, on being stirred about in a small pool of salt water, soon caused to l&tuer like suds... ~ —— «* “A porcupine-fish »( THodirn hyetrir), weighing about seven muml*, one of. the Plectognathes, was peitiipilhe foot* eunoua one we caught. The men treated this gentleman with the giemeurpUMlMyt'An tion, evidently regarding him as a dangerous brute. A more awkward one to handle it is quite Impossible to conc&ve, as he is entirely covered with small spikes, dispersed over sides, back and abdomen, in such a manner as to prevent effectually anyone touching him. On being hauled up, he came grunting loudly out of the water, and, as he lay on the rocks’, commenced swelling himself out by successive gulps of air, which he inhaled with such noise and vigor that he soon resembled a cross between a distended foot ball and an angry toad. Its skin was so tough that it resisted easily the pike-thrusts which saluted it, and only after several efforts was it dispatched with a sharp, and strong clasp-knife. Its maxillaiy and intermaxillary bones are soldered together so as to render the upper jaw immovable; its entire month appeared plated with some kind of enamel; and M. told hs that, its powers of crushing were so great that, when fresh from the wctgr, one of them could easily erumble any of the lumps of scoria lying about, were a piece placed between its powerful jaws.” A number of large eels were among the victims landed, and these seemed to be the most formidable of all the species caught. “Their jaws,” says Sir Rose, “ shaped something like a duck’s bill, were capable of great expansion, and their teeth were strong, and sharp as razors. One that we had speared turned viciously round and bit a large piece out of his own tail, ana then seizipg a bamboo he had been struck with, severed the tough cane as if it had been a simple carrot. We afterward spiced and pickled our ill-tempered friend, and found him excellent eating; but, though the flesh was perfectly white and delicate, his bones were all deep purple, and strong .as steel. The vertebral bone was marvelously formed for strength, having a kind of extra flange through its entire length, which must have given the brute an amount of power I have never seen developed in any other kind of eel, or in any skeleton of snake or viper. All the small bones terminated in a kind of fang, or fork, which I never observed in any other fish.” —Chicago Tribune.