Aufsätze. 
Nachdruck verboten. 
The Electric Organ of the Stargazer, Astroscopus (BREVOORT). 
(A New Form of Electric Apparatus in an American 
Teleost.) 
By Uxric Danueren, 
Assistant Professor of Biology at Princeton University 
and ©. F. SILvEstER, 
Assistant in Anatomy at Princeton University, U.S.A. 
= With 13 Figures. 
Preliminary paper. 
In the past year the writers have remarked a number of reports 
of fishes that have given their captors shocks of electricity although 
they had never been known to possess electric organs. It was decided 
to examine the fishes in question and, with one exception, they proved 
to be without any organ or modification of their structure that could 
be identified as an electric apparatus. This exception was the genus 
Astroscopus, of the “star-gazer” family; a genus which is found in 
American waters, two species on the east coast of the United States 
and one on the west coast of Panama. In these fishes was found an 
electric organ of high specialization and efficency and of entirely new 
form as to its morphology and the structure of its electric cells, the 
electroplaxes. 
Dr. CHARLES GILBERT!) of Stanford University was the first, so 
far as is known to the writers, to report having felt electric shocks 
from Astroscopus guttatus (ABBOTT) while he was preparing a living 
specimen for preservation. Dr. J. A. HENSHALL independently reported 
having received shock from Astroscopus y-graecum (CUVIER and 
VALENCIENNES). Dr. D.S. Jorpan?) of Stanford University uses these 
reports in his book on fishes. A number of fishermen at Virginia 
Beach, Virginia, whom the writers interviwed, had always known of 
this fish and its- electric power. 
1) A Guide to the Study of Fishes, by Davip Srarr Jorpan, 
New York, 1905; Henry Holt & Co., p. 658. 
2) “The Fishes of North and Middle America” by Jorpan and 
Evermann. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, No. 47. 
25* 
