250 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Tortugas. 



The description of this ray is interesting not because it contains any- 

 thing new or unusual or erroneous, but because it is a curious jumble of 

 Marcgrave, Willughby, Euphrasen, J. R. Foster (ms. " Descriptiones Ani- 

 malium"), Prince Maurice of Nassau, and Hans Sloane ("History of 

 Jamaica"), However, Schneider examined several "Swedish specimens," 

 and among them probably Euphrasen's, while he also had several sets of 

 jaws and a dried specimen cut in half. 



Omitting those parts of Schneider's description, which will be taken up 

 in the special sections, his general account is now given. He says that the 

 head is compressed and prominent; above the apex there may be noted 

 holes (spiracles) placed transversely ; the mouth is inferior and is filled with a 

 few teeth crowded together; the laterally placed eyes are of medium size 

 in round orbits but little larger than themselves ; the body is broad and flat, 

 the lateral angles are acute, the emarginate fins are steel-colored above with 

 round white spots the size of the thumb, and the tail is three times longer 

 than the body. Its habitat is given as the American Ocean, especially 

 around the Caribbean Islands. 



In 1803, the East India Company published in London, in two sumptuous 

 volumes, "Descriptions and Figures of Two Hundred Fishes Collected at 

 Vizagatapam on the Coast of Coromandel" by Patrick Russell, a physician 

 in its employ. On page 5, there is described a ray called by the natives 

 eel tenkee and by Russell the ocellated raja. Figure 6, plate iii, is a repro- 

 duction of plate VIII of the above work, showing this fish. That this is 

 Aetohatus narinari, inspection of the figure and study of the description 

 make clear. The general outline of the fish, the pointed pectorals with 

 fimbriated hinder edges, the white spots profusely covering the body back 

 of the shoulder region, the projecting head with its pointed snout, the relative 

 position of the eyes and spiracles, the rounded ventrals with the dorsal 

 placed well between them on the root of the tail, all spell narinari. When 

 one reads that the tail is long and whip-like, and that the jaws are dissimilar, 

 "the lower arched, narrow, and projecting beyond the wider immovable 

 upper jaw," one is quite sure that it is narinari despite the absence of spots 

 on the anterior dorsal region and the fact that both jaws are described as 

 devoid of teeth. These points will be considered later. 



Blainville, in the Journal de Physique, tome 83, for 1816, has a systematic 

 paper in which he establishes the genus Aetohatus, assigns the generic 

 characters, and notes ten species, of which narinari is one. Later, Blain- 

 ville (1828) changed the generic name to Aetobatis, though a careful search 

 through his paper fails to reveal any reason therefor. His characters for 

 the genus are as follows: 



Body together with the pectoral fins in the shape of a bird with extended wings; head 

 free and provided with a simple appendage in front; eyes lateral; teeth large, smooth, 

 polygonal, united into two plates, one lingual, the other palatine; pectoral fins pointed, 

 anterior border convex, posterior concave; pelvic fins as in the sting rays, only one fin 

 above on the root of a tail often very long, flagellate, armed with one or two spines. 



