APPENDIX 255 



one occasion we swam in the middle of entire shoals of them 

 and never saw the least sign of aggression on their part. 

 Mantas do not even attack when wounded. So far as we 

 could see they are peaceable animals, all the more so since 

 they have no means of attacking. Physically, mantas resemble 

 the common ray-fish except for the position of their eyes, 

 which are lateral in relation to the head and not above, 

 and because of two appendages, shaped like two flattened 

 horns, used for feeding purposes, at the sides of the wide 

 mouth. They feed on plankton or small marine organisms. 



Roghi has already described in his chapter 'The Dance of 

 the Mantas' what was undoubtedly our most interesting 

 experience of these giants of the sea, both from the scientific 

 and spectacular points of view. In the absence of absolute 

 proof I cannot, as a naturalist, make any statement about 

 that phenomenon. The hypothesis of the searching of a 

 suitable zone for a breeding-ground by the gravid mantas 

 and the general assembly on certain days is not unreasonable, 

 especially when one takes into consideration the strange 

 behaviour and twistings of the mantas in question as well as 

 the subsequent appearance of troupes of small individuals 

 looking unquestionably like new arrivals, swimming along 

 oddly in double rows. 



If it had been possible to capture an adult specimen on 

 that occasion, we could have solved a problem which is still 

 veiled in mystery. 



