SANDY RAY. 



577 



bling a bird's claw in miniature, but which still are less long, 

 slender, sharp, or crooked, than in young specimens of the 

 Raia oxj/rhj/nchus, it may be distinguished by a great ten- 

 dency to circularity in the disk, formed chiefly by a rounding 

 off of the pectoral fins, by a flatness of the anterior portion, 

 by the uniformity of its colour, the regularity of the spots, 

 and the comparatively short and tapering tail. 



Since the publication of the Supplement to the British 

 Fishes, in which a considerable portion of the previous ac- 

 count appeared, I have been favoured by Captain Portlock, of 

 the Ordnance Survey, with excellent drawings of a male and 

 female of this species, which were caught in the North of 

 Ireland, and from the drawing of the female the representation 

 at the head of this subject was engraved. I am also indebted 

 to Captain Portlock for many other interesting communica- 

 tions on the Natural History of Ireland. The Sandy Ray 

 has also been taken in Dublin Bay. The detailed descrip- 

 tion by Mr. M'Coy of a Ray without a name, in his paper on 

 some rare fish from the coast of Ireland, printed in the sixth 

 volume of the Annals of Natural History, p. 405, to which I 

 have before had the pleasure to refer, appears to belong to 

 this species. 



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