258 TWO YEARS IIS" THE JUNGLE. 



able, even at quite a distance. The color of the body is blackish 

 gray, but on different parts of the body the shades vary from gray 

 to dvill black. The under parts are dirty white, mottled here and 

 there with pink tints. The dorsal fin is marked by a few large, 

 round, white spots. 



In the course of removing and preserving the skin, I found 130 

 small spines from the tails of as many small sting rays, sticking in 

 the head around the mouth and in the muscles around the corners 

 of the mouth. Evidently our ancylostoimis had a great liking for 

 ye tender little ray, and sovereign contempt for his many-barbed 

 spine, a single insertion of which would be apt to give a man the 

 lock-jaw on short notice. Apparently they did not cause our shark- 

 ray the slightest discomfort, as the number of these trophies showed 

 that he ate all the rays he could catch. 



Even the fishermen declared that this fish was very rarely 

 caught, and but for my good luck in buying it from " first hands" 

 — the catcher — I should have been obliged to have paid a good 

 round price for it. The bargain was concluded before the lusty fe- 

 males who act as " middle-men " suspected the danger ; and the way 

 they all set upon that poor fisherman, when they learned he had 

 sold the fish to me for tliree paltry shillings, and environed him, and 

 howled in his ears in impotent rage, must have made the poor man 

 wish us all at the bottom of the sea. 



When I reached Colombo again, my friend Dr. Haly offered me 

 one hundred and fifty rupees for this specimen for the museum, 

 and being in need of hard cash, I reluctantly let it go. I have 

 never seen but one other individual of this species. 



On my return from MuUaitivu, in the middle of April, I found 

 cartilaginous fishes had quite gone out of fashion, and in their 

 stead, big sea-turtles were all the rage. I was very glad of such an 

 opportunity to collect some large specimens of the carey [Chelonia 

 virgata), the Indian counterpart of our green turtle (C. mydas). 

 The carey is the largest of the genus Chelonia, good-sized specimens 

 being almost, if not quite, one-third larger than our largest gi-een 

 turtle. The chief difference in form is in the greater convexity of 

 the shell of the foi'mer. I secured four very good specimens of the 

 carey, the shell of the largest of which measured underneath 44 by 

 32 inches. The weight of this specimen I estimated at four hun- 

 dred pounds, and yet I think it was not so large as one other which 

 I saw in the Calcutta Museum. 



The flesh of the carey is considered about on a par with that of 



