190 2 Six Uncommon British Sea- Fish 11 



sound evidence that these filaments have any such function 

 in the animal's economy. To touch brieliy upon the leading 

 characters of the fish, in addition to those already noticed, 

 is merely to state the outward features of most sharks, such 

 as the sexual claspers in the male, and in both sexes the 

 breathing spiracles, the five gill-slits, the mouth beneath 

 the head armed with several rows of conical teeth, the 

 granulated, scaleless skin, the eye lacking indeed the 

 nictitant membrane found in so many sharks, but capable 

 of closing by a somewhat different process of which lack 

 of space precludes any closer description. The monk-fish 

 is also said to possess a sense of hearing and indeed rudi- 

 mentary ears. In the reproduction of its young it follows 

 the sharks and not the rays, which it outwardly resembles, 

 for the eggs are hatched within the body and the young 

 extruded alive. All the rays, on the other hand, — and, 

 among sharks, those two spotted dogfish, the nurse-hound 

 and row-hound, — deposit the curious oblong egg-cases which 

 people pick up on the beaches after stormy weather and 

 call ''purses." The monk -fish illustrates what was said 

 at the commencement of these notes as to the relative 

 commonness or rarity of any species according to the stand- 

 point. In parts of the coast the monk-fish is comparatively 

 scarce, but at Teignmouth, on the other hand, the writer 

 has seen several in the course of a week in May, brought 

 ashore in the sand-eel (locally called "sprat") sean and 

 left to rot on the beach. 



The Torpedo {Torpedo nobiliana) is in its way the most 

 interesting of the rays, though their more typical quadri- 

 lateral disc gives place in the present form to a more nearly 

 round shape. The distinctive feature of the torpedo lies in 

 its electric organs, situate, in the form of gelatinous cells, 

 behind the head, one on each side of the body, and it is 

 from their power of giving shocks that the animal derives its 

 popular names of cramp-fish or numb-fish. Five feet or 

 more in length and somewhat less than 100 lb. in weight 

 may be regarded as the limits of growth in the torpedos of 

 our seas, though there are many other species in the Medi- 

 terranean and elsewhere than the one here intended. Of 

 all the methods adopted by fishes for securing their prey 



