A N I M A L
K I N G D O M
favourite parroquet, which .eat a hit of the fifh, likewife died in.
confequence o f it. Sometime afterwards, I- was told that a -fifli of
the fame fpecies was caught at Tanna by fome o f the failure, who
faked it and eat it, without any ill effedts ,- from whence.it is to be
fuppofed that this fpecies is not poifonous- in itfelf, but Only from
the food which it accidently meets* with, in the fame manner as
many fifh. in the Weft Indies, otherwifê very wholefome to eat-,
are faid to become deleterious, by 'feeding-. on the manchineel apples.
T h e other fort was a new fpecies o f t e t .rqd-'on,., whofe
ugly appearance alone might have prejudiced us againft it,, had we
been any ways nice ; but fo.much. is. the value of. freih prlovilions
enhanced by being long at fea, that'we were glad o f even this o p portunity
o f eating an ill-looking animal. Only three of us eatra
very final! bit o f the liver, not above two or three morfels each at
fupper; before two o’clock the next morning, we were all up*
complaining Of the effedts-of the poifon,. which operated exactly as
that o f the fparus had done before : we immediately took vomits;
and having evacuated all. we' had. eaten, efcaped with a giddinefs,
lafting only a few days-,-without a n y o f the acute pain experienced in
the other inftance. Another hog then on board, unfortunately tailing
the entrails, fwelled as the other had done and died :. fometime after-,
another t e t r o d o n of the fame fpecies, was-caught,, and being
opened,, one of the dogs eat a fmall. quantity o f the entrails; and
lived in the moft dreadful agonies for a fortnight after, fo that he
was
was at length thrown over board as incurable. Th e fparus feems a n i m a l 6 K I N G D O M
to have been mentioned by Q u i r o s , under the.name o f p a r g o s ,
which he fays at one time poifoned great part o f his fhip’s company.
T h e tetrodon again is related clofely to the ‘Tetrodon ocelldtus, which
in Japan is commonly made ufe o f in, cafes, of felf-deftrudtion, and
the virus o f which is enhanced by the Ilicium anifatum, an other-
wife falutary plant. (See Kampfer Hiß. Japan.)
I t remains now that I fhould fay fomething on the animals,
which are looked on as figns o f the approach-of land: and I ought
here, to add, that the fight o f birds is not more to be depended
on, than that of lea-weeds, u n le fsw e are well allured that the
birds we fee, are land birds, or never range; to , any,
diftance from land-, a circumftance not eafily afcertained. Seals,
pinguins, petrels, and albatroffes, are.feenfix or feven hundred
leagues from land, in the very middle o f the South Sea, fo
that they cannot be depended on. Between the tropics, men
of war birds are feen a hundred leagues from land, and as
the ifles of the South Sea there, are much nearer' together, they
•cannot be looked upon as figns of land. Boobies and Haags do
not wander fo far; and the Taft, commonly not out o f fight of
land; but one knows not how far accident may fometimes carry them.
Thefe are the few remarks on animals which occured to me,
during the courfe of this expedition.
ey E e 2 C II A P.