590 RAIID.E. 



prey or its enemy, when with its winding tail it secures its 

 capture. These spines, as may be supposed, possess no really 

 venomous quality : when lacerated wounds happen to men of 

 a bad habit of body, the symptoms are frequently very severe. 

 In some countries, serrated fish spines, admitting of easy 

 application by tying, are used to point arrows and spears, 

 which when thus mounted become very formidable weapons. 



A specimen examined and described by Pennant was two 

 feet nine inches long from the tip of the nose to the end of 

 the tail ; to the origin of the tail, one foot three inches : the 

 breadth, one foot eight inches. The body is quite smooth, 

 except, according to M. de Blainville, a few small tubercles 

 along the central line of the back and tail, as well as on the 

 upper and posterior part of the pectoral fins probably a male 

 fish ; the shape almost round, and of a much greater thick- 

 ness and more elevated form in the middle than any other of 

 the Rays, but grows very thin towards the edges ; the nose is 

 very sharp-pointed, but short ; the irides are of a gold co- 

 lour ; behind each eye the temporal orifice is very large : the 

 colour of the upper surface of the body is a dirty yellow ; the 

 middle part, of an obscure blue : Mr. Donovan says the young 

 are spotted with brown. The tail and spine are dusky ; the 

 former very thick at the beginning : the spine, placed at 

 about one-third of the length of the tail from the body, is 

 about five inches long, flat on the top and bottom, very hard, 

 sharp-pointed, the two side edges thin, and closely and 

 sharply serrated the whole way ; the tail extends four inches 

 beyond the end of this spine, and becomes very slender at the 

 extremity. The under surface is white ; the nasal lobes very 

 large ; mouth and teeth small. The flesh is said to be rank 

 and disagreeable, and when laid bare by skinning or cutting 

 into, is very red, a circumstance which may account for the 

 old name of Fire Flaire. 



