262 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Tortugas. 



Omitting those who merely copy Marcgrave without ever having seen 

 the fish, we next come to Sloane (1697) whose Jamaican ray was "smooth, 

 blue, marked with white spots" on the dorsum. His slightly fuller de- 

 scription, dated 1725, makes the fish "all blue even in the flesh itself, with 

 white spots on it." 



Browne (1756), whose fish came from the same waters, speaks of the 

 middle parts as bluish-mixed {media cceruleo-miscella) . 



Next comes Euphrasen (1790), whose ray (also a West Indian specimen) 

 was a brown above with round white spots, in diameter about the size of a 

 man's thumb. His drawing (fig. 5, plate iii) has the spots too large, too 

 few, and entirely lacking on the head. In Walbaum's "Artedi," volume 3, 

 1792, Euphrasen is quoted substantially as above, as he is also by Schneider 

 (Bloch and Schneider, 1801). 



Russell's (1803) ocellated ray had a dark ash-colored upper surface 

 spotted with numerous small, round, white spots edged with black these, 

 however, being absent from the head. 



The question whether or not Quoy and Gaimard's 5-spined ray from 

 Guam is identical with A. narinari will be taken up in the section on the 

 species, but for the sake of continuity it seems well to give their notes on 

 the color. This was a dark brown sprinkled with round sky-blue spots. 



Ruppell's (1835) Red Sea ray had its whole upper surface of dark olive 

 variegated with white spots. He declares that his ray, of which he gives 

 no figure, is identical with Russell's Eel Tenkee, which is shown in figure 6, 

 plate III. 



Miiller and Henle (1841) examined twelve specimens from Brazil, the 

 Red Sea, and the Indies, whose coloring was brown interspersed with white 

 spots scattered regularly over the whole dorsal surface save the head only; 

 but they add that the number of these spots was sometimes small. 



Forster's toothless ray (Lichtenstein, 1844), which is Aetobatus narinari 

 beyond any doubt, was lead or steel colored above and "scattered over the 

 body" were many round white spots. 



The spotted sting ray found in the Malayan waters was, according to 

 Cantor (1849), "Above greenish-olive or greenish-gray; a little behind the 

 occiput and behind the anterior margin of the pectorals appear more or 

 less numerous greenish-white rounded spots edged with black." 



Bleeker (1852), who found these rays common throughout the East 

 Indies, describes them as being coppery green above, the back and fins 

 both pectoral and ventral dotted with scattering round pearly-blue spots. 

 No definite statement is made as to their occurrence on the head. 



Dumeril (1861) has gone into the question of spots more carefully than 

 any other writer. He says, describing the congeneric A. latirostris, which 

 Gunther declares to be a mere variation of A. narinari and not entitled to 

 specific rank (on this point see page 315 of this article): "On a brownish- 

 black foundation are roundish white spots irregularly scattered and occu- 

 pying all the upper surface of the animal." Contrasting it -with A. nari- 



