Fishes of the IV es tern North Atlantic 103 



Cod beach to catch flounders, was so shocked by a Torpedo that it ran away howling 

 and could never be persuaded to go fishing again. 



However, shocks of a strength even approaching what is suggested by such reports 

 are to be expected only from Torpedoes of the largest size, and then only if they 

 are in a rested condition while in the water or soon after capture. But it is likely 

 that the voltages of 170-220 that have been recorded recently for T. nobiliana after 

 several weeks in a live well are considerably lower than the voltage that these same 

 specimens might have delivered had they been at liberty and had they fed recently.*' 

 A slight benumbing or tingling sensation is the most that we have felt from medium- 

 sized specimens lying on the dock at Woods Hole. 



The great majority of American records for T. nobiliana are of specimens that 

 have been either seined or taken in pound nets in a few feet of water or stranded on the 

 beach. It has even been taken in sounds behind barrier beaches, as near Manteo on 

 Roanoke Island, North Carolina, and on the coast of New Jersey. But the number of 

 such captures has been so small as to make it likely that they represent merely the 

 fringe of a population that centers farther out in depths of perhaps 10—40 fathoms, 

 as is said to be true of it in British waters.*' Our Study Material includes one trawled 

 in Massachusetts Bay at 30 fathoms and another taken by Captain Jared Vincent 

 (with 12 others, all large) in February 1949 about 60 miles off Marthas Vineyard in 

 50 fathoms. Another large specimen, about four feet wide, was taken in January 1949°" 

 with three smaller ones in 50—60 fathoms in the Hudson Gorge off New York. In 

 June 1 931" a large one was netted in 17 fathoms some 30 miles from the nearest land 

 off Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And specimens have been taken on La Have Bank 

 and on the southwest part of Georges Bank in water at least 30—50 fathoms deep. 



Except for a single specimen taken at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, in February, 

 the records of its capture close inshore have been between spring and November. It 

 appears that the few individuals that do stray close inshore to the northward during 

 the warmer half of the year may do so as early in the season at one point along the 

 coast as at another. October and November have been described as the months of 

 most frequent occurrence for them off southern Massachusetts and along Cape Cod. 

 The paucity of records for it south of Cape Lookout suggests that it cannot survive 

 subtropical temperatures for any length of time. 



Numerical Abundance. The coastwise sector from the tip of Cape Cod to the offing 

 of Rhode Island is the only one in the western Atlantic where reports of its presence 

 rest on more than an occasional capture, and even there the numbers taken are small 

 as compared with some of the Skates (genus Raja). At most, 60—80 are said to have 

 been taken yearly along Cape Cod when they have been most plentiful there (p. 104), 

 and perhaps 15-20 during the spring on the south shore of Marthas Vineyard. As 

 many as 12 have been taken in one lift of a fish trap near Woods Hole and in Vineyard 



88. See Coates and Cox (Zoologica N. Y., 2y, 1942: 28) for voltages, current, and power delivered by adult T. nobiliana 

 with various resistances. 



89. Day, Fish. Gt. Brit., 2, 1880-1884: 331. 90. Reported to us by Captain Frank Janssen. 

 91. Personal communication from F. E. Firth, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



