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136 That its muscular powers are great, there is no doubt, and that its blunt teeth would painfully bruise the flesh, and produce an injury perhaps more difficult to be healed than even a lacerated

wound, is not improbable. With all our inquiries made inon [sic] the island, we have never been able to trace any direct accounts of serious mischief done by this animal; and those which seemed most circumstantial of second-hand narratives are such as in a great degree may be accounted for by the imagination,—the fears of the patient, in the case of a bite, being very highly excited. The creature is acknowledged, however, to be inoffensive, biting only in self-defence, when accidentally trodden on, or attacked.