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animal is found to possess, somewhat resembling that of a horse's 

 skin, when stung by a fly. This operating under the toueh with 

 an amazing quickness of vibration, they suppose produces the 

 uneasy sensation described above; something similar to what we 

 feel when we rub plush cloth against the grain. But the cause 

 is quite disproportioned to the effect ; and so much beyond our 

 experience, that this solution is as difficult as the wonder we 

 want to explain. 



The most probable solution seems to be, that the shock pro- 

 ceeds from an animal electricity, which this fish has some 

 hidden power of storing up, and producing on its most urgent 

 occasions. The shocks are entirely similar ; the duration of the 

 pain is the same; but how the animal contrives to renew the 

 charge, how it is prevented from evaporating on contiguous ob- 

 jects, how it is originally procured, these are difficulties that 

 time alone can elucidate. 



But to know even the effects is wisdom. Certain it is, that 

 the powers of this animal seem to decline with its vigour; for 

 as its strength ceases, the force of the shock seems to diminish ; 

 till, at last, when the fish is dead, the whole power is destroyed, 

 and it may be handled or eaten with perfect security : on the 

 contrary, when immediately taken out of the sea, its force is 

 very great, and not only affects the hand, but if even touched 

 with a stick, the person finds himself sometimes affected. This 

 power, however, is not to be extended to the degree that some 

 would have us believe ; as reaching the fisherman at the end of 

 the line, or numbing fishes in the same pond. Godignus, in his 

 History of Abyssinia, carries this quality to a most ridiculous 

 excess ; he tells us of one of these that was put into a basket 

 among a number of dead fishes, and that the next morning the 

 people, to their utter astonishment, perceived that the torpedo 

 had actually numbed the dead fishes into life again. 



To conclude, it is generally supposed that the female torpedo 

 is much more powerful than the male. Lorenzini, who has 

 made several experiments upon this animal, seems convinced 

 that its power wholly resides in two thin muscles that cover a 

 part of the back. These he calls the trembling fibres ; and 

 he asserts that the animal may be touched with safety in any 

 other part. It is now known also that there are more fish, than 

 this of the ray kind, possessed of the numbing quality, which has 



