486 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l68l. 



kinds, a greater and a less ; some of the one weighing 25 lbs. and of the other 

 6 ozs. 2. That in the skin there are several pores, which are the ends of so 

 many pipes or ducts that bring slime to make the skin slippery, and which are 

 accompanied with so many others which go from the skin to the spina dorsi, the 

 rise of the former being in the glands, between the eyes and the edge of the 

 fish, which swim in a liquor in a cavity made by appendices of the cranium, 

 which glands separate this slime from the blood. And the latter or smaller 

 pipes carry back the superfluous. 3. That the brain touches the pia mater in 

 the base only, being separated elsewhere by water in which the brain swims. 

 4. That the heart has but one auricle, and that it will move 8, Q, or 10 

 hours after it is separated from the body. 5. It has an ovarium near the 

 liver, and a double oviduct and womb (for it is viviparous) wherein the eggs 

 swim, till from a cicatricula a perfect foetus is formed. The conception, 

 during its formation, having no communication with the dam, by vessel, mem- 

 brane, or otherwise. And here he describes the genitals of other creatures, 

 and amongst them of a lobster and crab, wherein he says Dr. Willis has mis- 

 taken penultim for ultim. 6. That the chief wonder of this animal, and that 

 which gives it its name, is the benumbing faculty which is seated in the two se- 

 micircular or falcated muscles on each side of the thorax, which consist of fi- 

 bres, irregular, but as large as a goose-quill, and made up of bladders filled with 

 a kind of water; one end of these fibres being fixed to the skin of the belly, 

 and the other end to that of the back, on which may be plainly seen the ves- 

 tigia of the fibres ends. Now when the fish contracts those fibres, there issue 

 out corpuscles fitted to the pores of a man's skin, so as to enter upon immediate 

 contact, but not otherwise, and disturb the posture of the parts, and to cause 

 pain, as when one's elbow is hit or knocked; and this comes most by the fingers 

 ends, because there are ends of tendons. And this pain is more or less, as the 

 contraction of the fibres have immitted more or less. 7- The fish takes in 

 water through several holes near the stomach, and puts it out at the other end, 

 forcing it in the passage to scour the bronchia or lungs, which in creatures that 

 have a thick fuligo to be separated (as this) are convex, in others are concave. 

 8. He seems to deny a tongue to this as well as to most other fishes, that which 

 is called so being devoid of the papillary instrument of taste, which is the pri- 

 mary use of a tongue. Q. He observes that the stomach, guts, &c. are short, 

 large, and turn very little, and consist but of one sort of fibres, namely circu- 

 lar, whereas others have a pair of cross winding screws. The weak peristaltic 

 motion being made amends for by a copious dissolvent, which oozes out of 

 small teats on the inside of the stomach, and soon reduces fishes, which this 

 animal swallows alive of all sorts, to a liquor fit enough for the lacteals. 



