l68 SAIITHSONIAN MISCELLANIiOUS COLI.ECTIONS VOL. 52" 



formed at the surface of the water. The fishermen in such localities 

 affirm that they never find any large animals in the stomachs of the 

 Devil-fishes. 



But, if Richard HilP is to be credited, some Devil-fishes may be 

 also "ground feeders." They are, he thought, "formed for shoving^ 

 through the fields of turtle grass, testudinaria, but, unlike the Rays, 

 which are likewise ground feeders," one of the Devil-fishes "does 

 not seize its prey on the ground, but, pushing on through the marine 

 herbage, it takes into its wide-open mouth the congregated living 

 things that are in the way — it may be the fish that nestle in the vege- 

 tation or the naked mollusca that depasture there — at once swallow- 

 ing them, or rather cramming them in with its cranial arms into its 

 mouth and stomach, without deglutition, having no CEsophagus. As 

 the animal in this gathering in of food can not see forward, it mu'it 

 depend on casualties in the course it steers through the marine 

 meadows for prey. The rolled-up head-fins between the crescented 

 head sufficiently direct the food to the mouth." 



In the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, the Devil-fish has been 

 charged with feeding on shell-fish and complaint has been made that 

 it does considerable damage to oyster beds. This charge is due 

 simply to the fact that the animal has been confounded with the 

 Eagle-rays, whose large molar teeth eminently fit them for crushing 

 shells. The general resemblance as well as real relationship of the 

 Devil-fish to the Eagle-rays is indeed such as to leave no room to 

 wonder that the same name is applied to species of both families, but 

 the singular head-fins of the Devil-fish distinguish it from all its 

 relations of dififerent families. 



Probably connected with the food and feeding of the Devil-f^:hes 

 are peculiar organs within the mouth, called by Panceri- and Dume- 

 ril,^ who first described them, "prebranchial appendages." 



"On examining at the bottom of the mouth the pharyngeal aper- 

 tures of the branchial chambers, or separating the walls of their 

 external apertures, we see, in front of each of the respiratory sur- 

 faces, a very regular series of organs which do not occur in any 

 other fish, whether bony or cartilaginous. 



"These organs are elongated lamellae, the aspect of which some- 

 what reminds us of that of the stems of ferns, but with the leaflets 



' Tlie Devil-fish of Jamaica. Intellectual Observer, 2, 1862, p. 167-176. 



"Panceri (P.) e Leone de Sanctis. Sopra alcuni organi delle Cephaloptera 

 Giorna, M. H. Atti Accad. Pontoniana, Napoli, vol. 9, 1871, pp. 335-3/0, 2 pis. 



^ Dumeril (A.). On the presence of peculiar organs belonging to the 

 Branchial Apparatus in the Rays of tlie Genus Ccplialoptcra. Ann. Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. (4), 5, 1870, pp. 38s, 386. 



