DR. RICHARDSON'S DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIAN FISH. J 79 



lobes. N. capensis has teeth closely resembling those of tasmaniensis, but it has a cir- 

 cular disc, only one back fin, and a more complicated nasal bridle'. 



Description of a female specimen. 



Form. — Greatly depressed, the pectoral disc having a broadly ovate outline with the 

 narrow end anteriorly. The widest part of the disc is opposite to the posterior bran- 

 chial openings, and the breadth there exceeds the length of the disc. The ventrals 

 lying immediately behind the pectoral disc attain to about two-thirds of its breadth. 

 Their outline forms a transverse obtuse oval, with a small blunt lobe on the posterior 

 part of each fin. The tail at its junction to the ventrals has a breadth equal to two- 

 thirds of their disc and tapers gradually to its extremity, which is an acute point in the 

 centre of the caudal fin. Its length is equal to the distance between the anus and the 

 mouth. 



The height of the body is one-eighth of its mdth, the back being flat on the mesial 

 line from the spiracles to the first dorsal fin, but sloping down anteriorly and laterally 

 to the thin edges of the snout and pectorals. The whole under surface is flat, but the 

 tail is convex above, and when it reaches the caudal fin it becomes ancipitous. 



The electrical apparatus fill up the lunated spaces between the branchial apertures 

 and pectoral fins, occupying nearly half of the total width of the fish at that part. 



The eyes are small and have a lateral aspect, being covered by loose integument pro- 

 ceeding from the mesial sides of the orbits, but they are capable of turning in every 

 direction 2. The size of the eye is rather greater than that of the common Torpedo 

 narke (or oculata) . The spiracles have a transversely oval almost circular opening, and 

 are bounded anteriorly by a cartilaginous lip, on which, within the border of the open- 

 ing, there are eight short, soft, vertical ribs. The distance between the spiracles and 

 eyes is greater than that which exists in any of the Narcines described by Henle, and 

 fully equals what occurs in Torpedo oculata. It exceeds the quarter of the space be- 

 tween the eyes. 



The nasal valve has three shallow obtuse lobes, and a skinny bridle connects the 

 under surface of the middle one with the loose skin which surrounds the base of the 

 upper jaw. There is also an obtusely lobed fold of integument on the exterior side of 

 each of the two nasal openings. 



The mouth is moderately protractile. The teeth are dermal, arranged in quincuncial 

 order, and are individually of a more or less perfect rhomboidal shape, the posterior 

 angle lengthened into an acute spinous process lying in the same plane with the slightly 



' Since this paper was read Muller and Henl^ have established the genus Astrape for the reception of capen- 

 sis and dipterygia, which have only one back fin. The Narcine tasmaniensis departs from the generic characters 

 as laid down by these authors in their ' Beschreibung der Plagiostomen,' in the dentition, the internally ribbed 

 spiracles, the relative size of first dorsal, and some other particulars. 



' In the figure the artist has shown the eyes when forcibly opened. 



