The Spotted Eagle Ray. 299 



The spine of either ray being closely set with backwardly pointing 

 serrations, it is much easier to cut the spine off and push it through the 

 wound than to pull it out, as Sloane (1725) has pointed out and such a 

 procedure has been followed in at least one instance known to the writer. 

 The wound is apt to be considerably lacerated, and into it will be carried 

 many pathogenic bacteria imbedded in the slime with which the spine 

 is covered. Furthermore the slime itself, when taken into the blood, may 

 act as a chemical poison. From this it would seem that the explanation 

 of the inflammation is not hard to find. Various modes of treatment are 

 in vogue at Beaufort for the healing of stingaree wounds, but for the most 

 part poultices are used to bring the inflammation to a "head," so that lancing 

 or natural breaking will bring relief. 



The only person whom I know to have been wounded by an Aetohatus 

 is Mr. Coles, who in July 1910, while clearing a net, had the misfortune to 

 have a large spotted ray drive its sting 2 inches or more into his leg. He 

 suffered agonies, but having at hand a syringe he thoroughly washed out the 

 wound with a strong solution of formalin. He reports that the pain ceased 

 at once and the wound healed quickly. 



The belief in the hurtful and even poisonous properties of the spine of 

 Aetohatus narinari is found scattered throughout the literature from the 

 very beginning. Thus the first European to describe this ray, Claude 

 d'Abbeville in 1614, tells us that its spine is a full foot long and "very 

 dangerous." Marcgrave says nothing on the subject, but Piso (1648 and 

 1658) writes very interestingly. He tells us that these rays are dwellers in 

 shallow water, where they feed on fishes for which they lie hidden in ambush 

 and which they transfix with the spine. This, however, is erroneous since 

 they feed only on mollusks. Further, our old writer goes on to say that 

 whenever any land or water animal is struck by this spine it receives a 

 virulent poison and the wounded parts suffer great pain, sometimes sufficient 

 to cause paralysis. Whether or not the spine of the dead fish retains its 

 poisonous properties, Piso was unable to say. The antidote for the poison 

 was a plant called Mangue. Piso elsewhere (1658) figures and describes 

 this plant. From the fact that it lives in swamps, and has many branches 

 converted into roots, and further that the figure shows the fruit to consist 

 of long pendant pods acutely terminate at the free ends, there seems to be 

 no doubt that this is the mangrove. Piso further tells us that the natives 

 successfully apply to the wound the ashes of the calcined spine or the split 

 liver of the fish, adding quaintly: "Thus the fish is seen to have in itself 

 the antidote for its poison." 



In his later work (1658), in the section dealing with Narinari, Piso' 

 remarks that many authors have written about the stings of the sting rays, 

 about their poisons and the antidotes therefor, and their hurtful effects on 

 the sound flesh of fishes. These things he says he has verified and has 

 found one of the worst of the sting rays to be Narinari pinima, which is the 

 name he gives our ray. 



