252 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Tortugas. 



They describe the upper surfaces of their specimens of A. narinari as brown 

 with round, white, regularly scattered spots which are lacking only on the 

 head, and add that the number of the spots is often small. Both my 

 photographs and Dumeril's figure (reproduced as fig. 8, plate iv, of this 

 paper and referred to elsewhere) , show that the head does not lack for spots 

 and that the number on the body is great. Curiously enough, however, 

 Jordan and Evermann's figure (text-fig. 3) shows very few spots in the 

 cephalic region. The fish from which it was drawn, however, like the twelve 

 examined by Miiller and Henle, was a preserved specimen. 



In the years 1 772-1 774, Johann Rheinold Forster collected fishes in the 

 southern seas and later described his collection. His manuscript, however, 

 remained unpublished, though noted by Bloch and Schneider (1801), until 

 it was edited by Lichtenstein and published at Berlin in 1844. He collected 

 both in Brazilian waters and in the South Pacific, and described and figured 

 a fish which he called Raja edentula, but which is easily recognizable as 

 Aetobatus narinari. According to his description, this ray is lead or steel 

 colored above with many round white spots, white below, and everywhere 

 smooth and bare; the head, slenderer than the body, terminates in a tri- 

 angular blunt snout, cartilaginous in structure, and having the edges rolled 

 up. The mouth is typically that of narinari; the crescent-shaped lower 

 teeth form a spatula projecting beyond the shorter and broader upper jaw. 

 The eyes are lateral, prominent, and rather far back and have vertical 

 pupils.^ Behind the eyes are the spiracles, connected with each other and 

 with the mouth. The tail is three times as long as the body, slender, cylin- 

 drical, pinnate (dorsal?), black, and armed with two serrate spines. Pectoral 

 and ventral fins are crenate behind. This is an admirable description of A. 

 narinari, but unfortunately accompanied by no figure. Lichtenstein does 

 not state why the figures, made to accompany the text, were not published. 



Cantor, in his " Catalogue of Malayan Fishes " (1849), describes an East 

 Indian Ray, Stoasodon narinari, which seems to be identical with our ray. 

 His description need not detain us here longer than to note that his fish is 

 greenish-olive or greenish-gray above, while the greenish-white spots edged 

 with black are found on all parts of the dorsum save the head and anterior 

 margin of the pectorals. These points will be taken up later. 



Bleeker (1852) declares that A. narinari is common throughout the 

 East Indies. His description of this fish does not differ from that given 

 by other authors save as to the color of the body and the structure of the 

 jaws, consideration of which points will be entered into later. Although 

 he gives no figure of his fish it is undoubtedly A. narinari. 



The most elegant figure of an eagle ray that has ever been published is 

 that of August Dumeril found in tome 10 of the "Archives du Museum 

 d'Histoire Naturelle" for 1858-61. Figure 8, plate iv, is a photographic 

 reproduction of plate 20 from the above volume. A \s A. latirostris from 

 the region of the Gaboon (river), B (lower left corner) is a head of A. nari- 



1 This is the earliest note made of this peculiarity. 



