NO. 1816 STORY OP THF, DEVIL-FISH — GILL 157 



jump five — yes, eight — feet high." Bat-fish and Black-bat are 

 sometimes used variants. 



Another name for the monster Ray has been borrowed from the 

 Spanish. Among the fishermen, and especially the pearl divers of 

 Central America and western Mexico, it is known as the Manta; 

 this is a Spanish term, meaning originally blanket, and was given by 

 the fishermen of parts of Spain and the island of Mallorca to a spe- 

 cies of the Mediterranean^ and extended thence to similar fishes of 

 other regions. It has been explained that the name was given by the 

 Spaniards of America to the Devil-fish because it was alleged ro 

 hover over and cover a fisherman at the bottom as a blanket prepar- 

 atory to killing him for good. The belief, indeed, that the Devil- 

 fish may so attack a man is not only widely spread, but of an ancient 

 origin. 



Such an idea, however, is contrary to our knowledge of the fish. 

 Like several other of the gigantic selachians,- its diet is in almost 

 inverse ratio to its size. 



Inasmuch as Devil-fish is the best known of all these names and 

 has been long current in story as well as in works on natural history, 

 it will be retained here and will be used for the great fish best known 

 as such, as well as for its congeners of smaller size. The species 

 especially called Devil-fish is one of a number having the same essen- 

 tial characters and all designated in a general way as Devil-fishes. 



II 



The form of the Devil-fishes is extraordinary ; the body, exclusive 

 of the tail, is about twice as wide as long ; the tail, however, corre- 

 sponds to the hind part of the body in distant relations of the Devil- 

 fish. Different as the animal is from Sharks generally, there is or 

 has been every gradation from an ordinary Shark to the Devil-fish. 



^The Manta of Mallorca, or Majorca, is the Mobiila giorna, and is the Vacca 

 or Vaca (Cow) with various qualifications of some other localities in the 

 Mediterranean. It is also the Bous of Aristotle. The names Vacca and Bous 

 allude to the horn-like caropteres or head-fins. The species is said sometimes 

 to reach a width of 28 feet. Cams, in his Prodromus Faunae Mediterraneae 

 (11, 1893, p. 520), specifies "Longit. 1.5-3 m" Pellegrin in 1901 (Bull. Mus. 

 Hist. Nat., VII, 327) noticed one 5m. 20 wide, and 4m. 15 long. There is record 

 ■of one 28 feet wide and 21 feet long and "estimated to weigh a ton" (Z06I., 

 1899, p. 146). The data are insufficient and a fish of the dimensions noted 

 must have weighed very much more than a ton. 



"The gigantic Basking Shark {Cctorhinns maximus) and the still larger 

 Rhinodon {Rhineodon typus) of the Indian Ocean subsist mainly on the 

 minute crustaceans and other animals living near the surface of the ocean. 



