Giant Fish of Florida 



of their own making, and it is in such positions that they may 

 be particularly dangerous, through no fault of their own, to the 

 too eager surf-fisherman who wades bare-footed in the muddy 

 water, careless of such risks. The whip rays seem of wide 

 distribution under a variety of names, and a striped species 

 has been taken on the Irish coasts. It would be difficult to 

 know what use the delicate tail usually stripped bare of its 

 skin an inch from the tip can be to this fish. The armament 

 of spikes at the base can be erected at will, and the fish is able 

 to bend up its back, much after the fashion of the scorpion, 

 so as to bring them to bear on enemies attacking it in front. 

 Each spike is serrated, its innumerable small points setting 

 inwards, and the whole is enveloped in a skin so thin as to be 

 ruptured by the mere act of withdrawing it from some body 

 into which the fearful weapon has been thrust. My own 

 impression is that portions of this skin remain in the wound, 

 and set up that local poisoning that gives to such an act of 

 aggression the popular name of " stinging." 



There are even larger rays on that coast than the whip 

 ray. The giant ray, for instance, is one of the largest of 

 existing fishes, and specimens have been captured measuring 

 as much as twenty feet across the " wings." Indeed, the 

 Spanish and half-caste pearl divers call this ghoulish monster 

 the " blanket," from a fixed belief (though no one can have 

 survived to tell the tale) that it envelops its victims as in a 

 blanket, and then devours them at leisure. This sobriquet 



