MYLIOBATIS AQUILA. 101 



This fish has only very recently been fully ascertain ed to be a native of 

 the British shores. Mr. Yarrell writes me word that " a specimen occur- 

 red in Berwick Bay on the 11th of September last (18o9), and was secured 

 by Dr. George Johnston, who most kindly sent it to me, I exhibited this 

 fish at the Zoological Society''s meeting on Tuesday evening last, and had 

 your (Madeiran) specimen on the table, to show their exact accordance,"* 

 Before this discovery, its right of admission into the British catalogues 

 rested merely upon Pennant's account of the tail of a Ray, brought to Mr. 

 Travis of Scarborough, in the summer of 1769, " by a fisherman of that 

 town, who had taken it in the sea off the coast, but flung away the body." 

 This tail " was above three feet long, extremely slender and taper, and 

 destitute of a fin at the end :" and from the subsequent express mention of 

 tubercles in reference to the tail of a Sicilian fish possessed by Pennant, it 

 is also plain that in this respect the Scarborough fish agreed with M. 

 Aquila ; in which this part is perfectly free from tubercles, and merely 

 rough or scabrous, chiefly towards the end. 



On the other hand, the tail which Pennant had received from the 

 Sicilian seas, " corresponding with the description Mr. Travis gave," but 

 " entirely covered with hard obtuse tubercles,"'!' belonged doubtless to a 

 Cephaloplera ; a genus, in which the tail is not only long and slender, 

 but also more or less tubercled-. It appears from Mr. Thompson's re- 

 marks in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1885, vol, iii. p. 78 

 (quoted in Brit. Fish, ii. p, 446), that an example also of this latter genus 

 has occurred upon the southern coast of Ireland. 



The Eagle-ray is very imperfectly known to the fishermen, and by no means 

 common in Madeira. It occurs occasionally to the westward of Funchal 

 along the southern coast, and is taken in the months of March and April. 

 On the sandy shore of Porto Santo these fishes are said to be more com- 

 mon. Oil is extracted from their liver, but the fish is not eaten ; and 

 from its worthlessness, no less than from their apprehension of the severe 

 wounds inflicted by its tail-spine, the fishermen are never eager, even when 

 captured, to receive this fish into their boats or carry it ashore. 



Shape transversely rhombic, like a bird with the wings expanded, twice as 

 broad as long, flat, but with the back very thick and convex in the middle, like 

 the nape and head ; thinner towards the root of the tail and sides. Wings (pec- 

 toral fins) narrow and pointed at the tips ; thick, especially tow^ards the head, yet 

 sharp-edged in front, falling backw^ards in an even convex curve from the sides of 

 the head or neck behind the eyes, and becoming gradually thinner-edged towards 

 their tips, which are slightly recurved ; their hinder margin concave just within 

 the tips, then curving outwards with a gradual sweep towards the middle, thin, 

 membranous, and irregularly notched or jagged throughout. Their base equals in 



* See Proceed. Zool, Soc. 1839, vii. 145. 



t Penn. iii. 88 : Flem. Brit. An. i. 170 : Yarr. ii. 446. By an oversight in the last-named work, 

 this character is transferred from the Sicilian to the Scarborough specimen. 



VOL. I. I 



