HISTORY OP THE FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 273 



graved from a dried specimen, and consequently might not perfectly represent the form 

 of this fish, I wrote to Mr. Yarrell, stating to him my doubts of the identity of the two 

 fishes and presenting him with my figure. His opinion coincided perfectly with mine. 

 I have, therefore, the pleasure to present a description of a torpedo hitherto unknown 

 to science ; and as no other species of this genus is known to exist on the shores of our 

 hemisphere, I shall call it Torpedo occidentalism The above remarks, I have copied from 

 my communication upon this subject, in the October number of the American Journal of 

 Science and Arts, for 1843. A portion of the following observations also will be noticed 

 to have been transferred from the same paper. 



Dr. Mitchill introduced the Rala torpedo into his " Fishes of New York," pubhshed in 

 1815, upon the authority of several fishermen with whom he had conversed, who had 

 been electrified by a species of ray, when they were detaching it from the hook with 

 which it was taken. He had never seen a specimen, but had no doubt of its being the 

 common torpedo, and consequently catalogued it as such. Since the appearance of Dr. 

 Mitchill's paper, I can find no further notice of the existence of an electrical ray in our 

 waters. In my "Report on the Ichthyology of Massachusetts," published in 1839, 1 cited 

 the testimony of several observers to prwe that an electrical fish, known as the cramp- 

 Jish,was occasionally taken on the shore of Cape Cod, but had never been seen by a natu- 

 ralist. During the month of November, 1842, a specimen of this long-looked-for species 

 was captured at Wellfleet by Mr. Seth N. Covell; I fortunately obtained it, and from 

 it prepared the above description. In Massachusetts Bay, this species appears to have 

 been met with only on the eastern shore of Cape Cod, between Provincetown harbor and 

 Orleans, an extent of about thirty miles ; and is found in greater numbers upon the east- 

 ern shore of Long Point, a narrow neck of land west of the town of Provincetown, than 

 at any other place. In these localities, it is observed only in the months of September, 

 October, and November. The greater number of those taken run ashore upon the sandy 

 beaches. Captain Atwood informs me he has known three individuals to be taken with 

 the hook, by persons fishing for other species ; and that others, being discovered in the 

 day-time near the shore, are harpooned and dragged on shore. In the year 1819, and 

 for four or five years afterwards, this species was unusually common at Provincetown — 

 from sixty to eighty being seen in a year ; since that time they have been comparatively 

 scarce, and for the ten years preceding 1845, not more than thirty were found; in that 

 year, 1845, a dozen were noticed. While on a visit at Gay Head, in August, 1846, I was 

 informed by Captain Leonard West, of Chilmark, and Mr. Samuel Flanders, keeper of the 

 Hght-house of Gay Head, that in Chilmark, three miles from Gay Head, they had known 



vol. ix. 35 



