238 Papers from the Department of Marine Biology. 
but it seemed from its ‘‘feel”’ that each shock was a single wave, one 
such as is portrayed on the plates prepared by physiologists in series to 
represent the intermittent current of the ordinary shock given by the 
fish. 
We are now ready to take up and discuss the questions on pages 231 
and 232 and see what the experiments show. 
1. Is there an orientation of the plasmosome? A glance at the 
table, in the fourth column, will show that there is. Also that it is a 
more or less variable fact, in this torpedo reaching from some specimens 
in which no orientation appears up to specimens in which, as in our 
large American form, Tetronarce occidentalis, the percentage is about 
100. 
2. Is this orientation due to the immediate physiological activities 
which accompany nerve discharge? This certainly does not seem to 
be the case. Fish of all sizes were examined after being killed both 
by ‘‘vivisezione”’ and by being allowed to die without giving shocks, 
and the table shows that neither a condition of ventral orientation 
nor the reverse can be predicted by the method employed in killing 
or by the amount of activity shown by the fish’s electric apparatus 
previously to the death of the specimen. In fact, strong negative and 
positive reasons exist which indicate the reverse of this, Magini’s main 
contention. ‘Twenty-five of the experiments were with fish that were 
killed by the knife. In many cases they were persuaded to give many 
shocks before being killed. In 2 cases all of the brain was used for 
other experiments, so that we have remaining 23 cases to consider and 
analyze. 
In these 23 cases, Nos.1, 3, 4, 6-16, 18, 20-24, 27, 29, and 30, we have 
all degrees of orientation, from less than 5 per cent in such cases as Nos. 
9, 10, and 24 up through 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 70 per cent, and 
85 per cent to a nearly perfect ventral orientation, as in the American 
Tetronarce. This clearly makes it impossible to agree with Magini in 
this regard, for we can not see in the table any consistent agreement 
between the amount of immediately previous physiological activity 
of the electric organ and the amount of ventral orientation of the 
plasmosome. Nos. 9, 24, 27, and 29 show fish that were forced to use 
the electric organ to excess just previous to death, and yet both showed 
only 5 per cent of ventral orientation of the plasmosome. Also, Nos. 
7 and 8 were killed according to Magini’s method, but they show no 
orientation. 
Looking at the other side of this factor, we find on the list several fish 
which died quietly without using their electric apparatus to any extent 
before death. Again we find that a quiet, inactive death has not 
resulted in all cases in a lack of ventral orientation. No. 2 was chloro- 
formed and shows 65 per cent; No. 19 died according to Magini’s 
formula and happens to show only 10 per cent; but passing to Nos. 
