410 Dr. Bancroft on Jamaican Fishes, &c. 
the end, because it appears to be a rare fish here: for no other has [ 
believe been caught since that one. It is highly probable that the green 
colour may be entirely removed; but evenif this should not be effected, 
there remained enough of the original purplish colour on the fish’s back 
to show what it formerly was at the time I putit into the breaker. In 
case however that the original colour should have suffered any change 
from the action of the spirit in the cask, I venture to send inclosed one 
or two attempts of mine at a figure of the fish. They were meant solely 
as memoranda for my own private use, and were made hastily during 
uneasy moments; and their defective execution would have deterred me 
from submitting them to the severe scrutiny of Zoologists, had not the 
hope that their fidelity as to colouring and as to shape and dimensions 
might palliate their defects, at length overcome my objections. This 
specimen appeared to me, when taken out of the brine, to have shrunk ; 
it originally measured 17 inches from the apex of the frontal flappers, or 
fins, to that of the ventral fins, and 28 inches in extreme breadth across 
the wings ; the tail being 21 inches long. About twelve months ago 
another of the same species, a male, was sent to me; but I had been 
called out of town for three or four days, and when I returned home the 
fish was so putrid as to be useless. Its dimensions however were rather 
larger ; its length, measured as above, was 32 inches, its extreme breadth 
44 inches, and its tail 27 inches. This individual had the male ap- 
pendages, as Colonel Montagu has called them, arising on the interior 
edge of the ventral fins, very distinct; I have reason to consider it as an 
adult. 
Though I have taken notes of the characters of this Fish, yet I abstain 
from sending them, as they would be useless to Mr. Bennett, who I hope 
will continue his favour to me and mine, and take this and the other 
Fishes now sent under his own protection. He will observe in it one 
deviation that is perhaps unique in the Ray tribe, and will therefore serve 
as a marked specific character, in the position of its spiracles. There 
are clearly none on the dorsal surface, whence I was led to suppose them 
wanting, asin some Sharks; at last however I discovered them in a 
groove immediately under the anterior edge of the base of the pectoral 
