244 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Torttigas. 



rays, myliobatids, are the most attractive. These are readily recognized 

 by their wing-Hke pointed pectoral fins, their long, slender, whip-like tails 

 armed with one or more serrated spines, and their jaws filled with large 

 pavement teeth. Of the three North Carolina genera of the family Mylio- 

 batidse, two forms, Aetobatus narinari, the spotted eagle ray, and Rhinoptera 

 bonasus, the cow-nosed ray, have been studied by the writer, while with the 

 third and rarer form, Myliobatis freminvillei, he is but slightly acquainted. 

 Because of its shape and markings, the spotted eagle ray is easily the 

 handsomest of these forms, and, in the whole ray order, so far as represented 

 on the North Carolina coast, its only rival in appearance is the butterfly 

 ray, Pteroplatea macliira. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS. 



The earliest reference to Narinari, which the writer has found, is in an 

 old book by Claude d'Abbeville, " Histoire de la Mission des Peres Capuchins 

 en risle de Maragnan,"^ published at Paris in 1614. On page 245, this 

 old monk writes as follows: 



There is here the Narinary, which is another flat-fish very similar also to the Raye. 

 It is six feet long and as many wide, and has a tail about a fathom long, in the middle of 

 which there is, moreover, a spine [as in the preceding ray], but about a full foot in length 

 and very dangerous. This ray is all striped with black and white. 



This is very indefinite, since none of the distinctive characters of the 

 fish are given, but the reference is probably to the ray under study. Sloane 

 (1797), from whom the reference came, thinks so. The name, Narinary or 

 Narinari, is Brazilian, and seems to have been the common designation of 

 this fish. The description of the lines is very interesting, since only one of 

 the several published figures of the fish, that by Jordan and Evermann 

 (1900), shows these lines (text-fig. 3), and but one author. Smith (1907), 

 describes them. 



The next reference is found in Jan de Laet's "Novus orbis, seu de- 

 scriptiones Indiae Occidentalis," published at Leyden in 1633. In book 

 XVI, chapter 14, page 616, de Laet quotes from Abbeville that Narrinnari 

 (also spelled in the margin Narinnary) is a species of ray having a tail shorter, 

 but with spines longer (than certain forms previously referred to), and 

 having the whole body marked with black and white lines. Beyond this 

 brief statement he gives no further description, and it is pretty certain that 

 he never saw the fish. 



In Purchas (1625), "His Pilgrims," vol. vii, chapter i, is a "Treatise on 

 Brasil, written by a Portugal which had long lived there." On p. 13 13 is 

 an obscure reference to a fish which "hath in its mouth two stones as broad 

 as the hand, exceedingly strong, with which they break the Wilkes whereon 

 they feed." And in the next paragraph "these Rayes some have in their 

 mouths two bones, and break with them the Wilkes." These statements 



I The island of Maragnan, or Maranham, as the Portuguese wrote it, is the present Maranhao on the 

 northern coast of Brazil. 



