There are some species of this genus that are poisonous but many are of delicious flavour: it is described by M.Lacepede in a paper in the Annal.

du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle (tome 4 page 203) as le Tetrodon argente (Tetrodon argenteus).
January 26.
On the 26th we sailed and passed outside of Dorre and Bernier's Islands; nothing was seen of the reef that lies in mid-channel on the south side of Dorre Island: a rippling was noticed by Mr.Roe in an East by South direction from the masthead at twenty minutes before one o'clock but, if the position assigned to it by the French is correct, we had passed it long before that time.

At six o'clock Kok's Island, the small rocky islet that lies off the north end of Bernier's Island, bore North 83 degrees East, distant seven miles.
January 27.
The following morning at daylight the land was seen in the North-East and at half-past eight o'clock we resumed our course and passed Cape Cuvier, a reddish-coloured rocky bluff that presents a precipitous face to the sea.

The coast thence takes a North by East direction; it is low and sandy and fronted by a sandy beach, occasionally interrupted by projecting rocky points; those parts where patches of bare sand were noticed are marked upon the chart.
At one o'clock we were near a low sandy projection round which the coast extends to the East-North-East and forms a shallow bay.

This projection was called after Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar, Bart., the late Governor of the Mauritius.
Farther on, in latitude 23 degrees 10 minutes 30 seconds, is a projection which, at Mr.Cunningham's request, was called after Mr.William Anderson of the apothecaries' garden at Chelsea.