The spotted Eagle Ray. 251 



This, it should be noted, is a statement of the characters of the genus 

 only; narinari is not named and no specific description is given save for 

 Raja aquila of European waters. 



In the celebrated voyage around the world of the corvette Uranie, a 

 spotted sting ray was taken at Guam. The zoology of this voyage was 

 written up by Quoy and Gaimard (1824), the ship's surgeons. They described 

 their ray as having an elongated snout, while its general color was a light 

 brown sprinkled with round spots of cerulean blue, and its tail was armed 

 with five very long, barbed spines. Their description is very imperfect 

 and their drawing "made on the spot" was lost. They were much im- 

 pressed by the fact that this ray had five spines on the tail and refer to it as 

 such an extraordinary matter as to make the tail worthy of deposit in the 

 Museum (of Paris?), and from this phenomenon gave to the ray the name 

 Raja guinqueaculata, the 5-spined ray. A photographic reproduction of 

 their fine figure of the spines is given in figure 7, plate iv, of this paper. 

 Below in the same figure is a photograph of a portion of the tail with four 

 stings of A. narinari from Beaufort. In the section dealing with the tail 

 and its spines, a careful comparison of the two tails will be made. 



In 1835, Ruppell described an eagle ray from the Red Sea under the 

 name Myliohatis eeltenkee. However, he has doubts about the identity, 

 for he says that he is not able to say whether it is diff"erent from Linne's 

 "form called Raja narinari after Marcgrave's description."^ In his syn- 

 onymy, Ruppell says his fish is identical with Russell's eel tenkee which 

 Gunther says, and which we have just seen, is Aetobatis narinari. That 

 it is A. narinari can not be doubted when one reads of the long, pointed 

 pectorals with fine notchings on the posterior edges (found on the 

 ventrals also) the white spots covering the dorsal surface; the elevated 

 head with lateral eyes; the long, pointed snout, and the mouth with its 

 teeth in a single row in each jaw, the lower being angled outwardly. Some 

 doubtful points are seven teeth only in each jaw (these will be considered 

 at length later), the dark olive color above, and the flabelliform tail. 



Despite the fact that Swainson (i 838-1 839) spent some months on the 

 northern coast of Brazil in 1816-1817, there is no evidence that he ever saw 

 our ray. He quotes Russell, and also Miiller and Henle, whose great work 

 was then appearing in parts, but adds nothing to our knowledge. 



In 1 841 the celebrated Johannes Miiller, with the cooperation of Jacob 

 Henle, published at Berlin in folio their " Systematische Beschreibung der 

 Plagiostomen." In it they definitely established the form Aetobatis nari- 

 nari based upon the examination of twelve specimens from Brazil, the 

 Indies, and the Red Sea, six being in alcohol and six dry. The congeneric 

 Raja flagellum of Bloch and Schneider, which it must be remembered is 

 declared to be identical with A. narinari by Giinther and by Jordan and 

 Evermann, is based on the examination of 19 specimens and one head. 



1 In none of the several editions of Linne'a "Systema Naturae," which I have examined, is there any record 

 of narinari. 



