118 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



than to give them a pleasing insect or two daily ; neither 

 thin- nor thick-billed birds but will gladly eat spiders, as 

 I have experienced in some kinds. 



York, Feb. 8, 75. 



Mr. DENT, of Cambridge, to Mr. RAT. 



SIR, Since my return I could not meet with any 

 Thornbacks till upon Friday last, and then I had a male 

 Flairmaid \Trygon pastinacd] and a female Thornback 

 \Eaia clavatd]. They were so far from assisting me to 

 perfect what I had begun, that they have given me just 

 occasion of a great deal farther search, especially the 

 male, which had between the fins and the tail, of each 

 side, another tail, as the fishmonger called it, and which, 

 he saith, all the males of flair and flairmaid, thornback 

 and thornback-maid, have. They are not tails, but such 

 (creatures I had like to have called them) as deserve an 

 excellent description, and the art of an excellent graver. 

 The extreme part, more than half way, very much resembles 

 an eel without eyes ; within an inch of the fins it grows 

 a little smaller, the outside of each is a rima, from the 

 extremity to that part which begins to be smaller. This 

 rima examined and dilated (which it easily admits of, and 

 afterwards contracts itself), that which was like the head 

 and part of the body of an eel, seems to be an expanded 

 webbed foot, with several remarkables in it, as a heel, a 

 sharp-edged bone half-inch long, &c. These, called tails, 

 seem to me like unshaped legs kneed, and joined with 

 the bones of the fins (which may be called thigh-bones), 

 and they to the coxendix. In each, above the rima, or 

 rather under the fins (examining the muscles rather than 

 expecting to find anything), I run my knife upon a vessel, 

 which afforded a great quantity of liquor (for that part), 

 part white, part bloody, which, being wiped off, I found 

 seminal vessels ; being more careful on the other side, I 

 found a large vessel full of liquor, as on the former men- 



