274 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Tortiigas. 



light and air revealed the presence of a few small, widely scattered light 

 spots. Since showing me the photograph, Mr. Coles has misplaced both it 

 and the film, and it can not be reproduced here. This fish was a male 4 feet 

 9 inches wide, 3 feet 2 inches long, and 8 feet 5 inches long over all. 



From all the data cited in this section it is clear that the spotted eagle 

 ray is subject to wide variation in color and markings. 



TAIL AND SPINES. 



On a preceding page there is a table in which the lengths of the tails of 

 the various specimens previously described are given both in absolute 

 measurement and in proportion to the length of the body. Very great 

 variations and discrepancies are met with, and none greater than in the 

 account of the first describer. Abbeville (1614) writes that his fish is 6 

 feet (pieds) wide and as many long and has a tail a fathom (brasse) long 

 with a spine about a full foot {un grand pied) long, whereupon he unneces- 

 sarily adds "and very dangerous." 



Marcgrave's specimen had a tail 5 inches thick at the root and 43^ feet 

 long, armed with two spines 3 inches long, curved like fishhooks, and placed 

 just behind the inch-long dorsal. His figure and the water-color painting 

 from which it was reproduced both have the spines with a single barb on 

 each pointing toward the head. 



Piso (1648) says that the spine approaches the form of an arrowhead. 



Omitting reference to those older authors, who quote Marcgrave without 

 adding anything to our knowledge, we next take up Sloane's (1725) illu- 

 minating description of the tail of the whip ray: 



The tail was six Foot long, black, small and smooth, of which are made Whips, whence 

 the name Whip-Ray, beyond the Pinna at the End of the Body or in the Beginning of the 

 tail lie one, two, or three Inch and half long flat streight Bones or Radij, they are white, 

 serrated with Teeth on both Sides like a Saw, made so as an Arrow that's bearded, to enter 

 the Flesh easily but not to come out without tearing it, they lie one on another on the upper 

 Part of the Tail, where there is a Hollow or Cavity made to receive them like a Sheath, 

 that they may swim with less Impediment, and only use them on Occasion. 



If the reader will now turn to figure 7, plate iv, wherein are shown Quoy 

 and Gaimard's five-stinged tail and my Beaufort specimen with four stings, 

 he will see how exactly Sloane has described tail and stings. However, 

 Sloane is in error in placing the spines in a hollow or cavity on the upper 

 part of the tail. In the large dried tail, referred to above and described 

 later, there is no distinct cavity, but there is a flattening with a very slight 

 concave surface due probably to drying. The spines, of course, offer no 

 impediment to the fish's movements. 



Save Sloane only, none of the older writers give so good a description of 

 the tail as Euphrasen (1790). His preserved specimen had a tail flat, 

 whip-like, growing smaller from base to tip, three times longer than the 

 body, bearing at its base a small subtriangular dorsal fin. Behind this 

 were two stings, the hinder twice as long as the anterior, both flattened 



