The Spotted Eagle Ray. 283 



have the median cartilage with the lateral cephalic fins very plain. Very 

 interesting is the gradation in length and width of snouts, and the marked 

 descent from forehead to snout level. The snout of Dumeril's A. narinari 

 is fully as short as that in my photograph, but much wider. The long, 

 pointed head and snout of A. flagellum correspond closely to those same 

 structures in Bloch and Schneider's and to Annandale's figures of the same 

 ray, herein reproduced as figures 24 and 25, plate x. 



The head in Gunther's (1880) outline sketch (text-fig. 2) is fairly good. 

 The eyes are out of sight, being covered by the forward prolongations of 

 the base of the pectoral fins. The distance between eyes and spiracles is 

 too great. The snout anterior to the forehead region is too short, and the 

 cephalic fins are too small. It is greatly to be regretted that Forster's 

 (1844) figure of his Raja edentula was never published. His description 

 tells us that it had a triangular snout, blunt and flattened, cartilaginous, 

 of medium size, and with edges which showed a tendency to curl or roll up. 



Russell's (1803) Eel Tenkee (fig. 6, plate in) had the head too mechanic- 

 ally drawn. The snout is very sharply pointed; the eyes are lateral but 

 too prominent, the fontanelle over the brain is too sharply differentiated 

 from the dorsum, when compared with Beaufort and Key West specimens. 

 Russell says that the snout is soft and that it turns up slightly at the point, 

 The head in Euphrasen's (1790) drawing (fig. 5, plate iii) is very poor and 

 unsatisfactory. Both eyes and spiracles are dorsal. The snout is too wide, 

 too short, and lacks the cephalic fins. 



Marcgrave's (1648) (text-fig. i) has the spiracle too far behind the base of 

 the pectoral, and the snout too short, blunt, and rounded. The water-color 

 painting (fig. 3, plate 11), from which the figure was reproduced, is consider- 

 ably better done as to snout, eye, and spiracle; while the oil painting 

 (fig. 4, plate 11) has eyes dorsal, spiracles invisible, and snout very long and 

 pointed. The former is an excellent figure, the latter very poor. 



In the relative size and shape of the head and snout, as in other struc- 

 tures, the spotted eagle ray shows great variations. In Beaufort specimens 

 we have snouts both symmetrical and unsymmetrical. Two had snouts like 

 those shown in figures 15 and 19, plates vi and viii, while all the others had 

 equilateral snouts more or less sharply pointed. Dumeril's A . latirostris (fig. 8, 

 plate iv) is possibly a different species. All the Key Wes t specimens had sym- 

 metrical snouts fully as pointed as that shown in fig. i^B, plate vi. 



JAWS AND TEETH. 



The "Portugal" quoted by Purchas (1625), who speaks of — "these 

 Rayes some have in their mouth two bones, and break with them the Wilkes," 

 was certainly referring to Myliobatids, mill-toothed rays, and possibly to 

 our particular form. 



However, the earliest definite reference to the singular jaws of this 

 fish is found in Marcgrave's original description. It is worthy of repetition 

 here, for, when it is remembered that Marcgrave studied this ray some 270 



