256 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Tortugas. 



My Florida specimens agree in general characters with those from 

 North Carolina. The largest (and the largest I have ever seen) measured 

 as follows: width 5 feet 2 inches; length to tip of ventrals 3 feet 8 inches; 

 length of tail only 6 feet 10 inches; length all over, 9 feet 9 inches; width 

 between eyes 8J^ inches, between spiracles 5}^ inches; weight 120 pounds. 

 The others need not detain us here. Their measurements are given in the 

 table on page 261. Details of color and number and size of teeth, etc., will 

 be taken up in the sections dealing with these structures. It may be re- 

 marked in passing that these rays seem to be abundant about Key West. 

 Dr. Mayer, in one afternoon in May, off Slaughter-house Point, secured 

 three from fishermen using the grains. At the same place a month later 

 I took the large one above referred to. Dr. Mayer's specimens were pre- 

 served in a rather unique way. They were small rays and this made it 

 possible to suspend them in a can at the ice factory in Key West where they 

 were frozen solidly in a 300-pound block of ice to await my coming some 

 weeks later. 



Figure i, plate i, which serves as a frontispiece to this paper is repro- 

 duced from a photograph of my specimen No. 3 of 1910. Figure 2, plate i, 

 is a ventral view of specimen No. 2 of 1910, while figure 13, plate vi, is a 

 lateral view of Coles's 1909 specimen. My specimens were photographed 

 while perfectly fresh, in fact within an hour after being taken. The speci- 

 men from which the lateral view was made had been in formalin for a few 

 days, but so far as could be told was quite normal in all respects. 



The photographs reproduced in figures i and 2, plate i, were made as 

 follows; to a post standing just before the largest window in the laboratory 

 a cross-piece was nailed; over this was hung a white sheet to serve as a 

 background; in front of this the fish was suspended from the cross-piece 

 by a cord run through the spiracles and their inter-communicating passage. 

 The ray was first suspended by fish-hooks caught in the upper gill-slits, 

 but as the very considerable weight of the fish caused these to tear the flesh, 

 as shown in the ventral view, they were discarded. The method used in 

 getting the lateral view is clear from the figure. The fin is turned up to 

 show the gill-slits. 



If figure I , plate i, be compared with the various illustrations reproduced 

 in this article, some interesting comparisons may be drawn. In Marc- 

 grave's figure (text-fig. i), it will be seen that the general outlines are good, 

 even though the drawing is crude. His figure is drawn from a "quartering" 

 view, i. e., from a point above, but about 45 degrees to the left. He says 

 that the whole upper part is of a steel color and that scattered over the 

 whole of this are white spots. The anterior borders of the pectorals are too 

 convex, the posterior edges too concave, the angles too acute. The snout is too 

 blunt, the eyes and spiracles too high on the head. The fore and aft striations 

 were not found in any of my specimens but are shown in Dumeril's figure 

 (fig. 8, plate iv). But with all its defects, even to a novice, text-figure i is 

 plainly a drawing of an eagle ray ; and when the description of the teeth is 



