94 LOXG-NOSED SKATE. 



From the snout to the widest portion of the pectoral fin in 

 a straight line twenty-eight inches and a half, and along the 

 curve thirty inches, the snout being narrow as well as prom- 

 inent, and forming an acute angle backward to behind the 

 eyes, where it spreads suddenly wider; the greatest width 

 behind the middle of the disk. The eyes not large, and at 

 considerably more than half the distance from the snout to 

 the middle of the body. Behind the eyes there are obscure 

 spines; the mouth narrow; teeth sharp; nostrils lobed. The 

 body smooth, much depressed, and of a light lead-colour; the tail 

 rather rough, with a row of large hooked spines on the border 

 on each side. Fins on the tail near each other, nearly the 

 length of one of them from the end. On the under side it 

 is spotted with dusky marks, as in the Common Skate. This 

 example was a female, and in all instances of this family the 

 males are more abundantly furnished with spines than the 

 females. The comparative proportions of this species, laid 

 by the side of the Common Skate and the Burton Skate, 

 which is another of this family with a protruded snout, are 

 found to be, that a Common Skate of five feet in length 

 measured eleven inches and a quarter, and a Burton Skate 

 of six feet in length one foot from the snout to the mouth; 

 when a fish of this species, of much less size, measured 

 between the same points fourteen inches, thus extending to 

 more than one third part of its greatest breadth, and more 

 than one fourth of its whole length. In the Common Skate 

 the latter proportion is less than one fifth, and of the Burton 

 Skate one sixth. 



