ORDER II. CHONDROPTERYGI. THE RAYS. 215 
his long, serrated, and barbed sting. An Indian, who accompanied Rich- 
ard Schomburgh on his travels through Guiana, being hit by a Sting Ray 
while fording a river, tottered to the bank, where he fell upon the ground, 
and rolled about on the sand, with compressed lips, in an agony of pun. 
But no tear started from the eye, no ery of anguish issued from the breast 
of the stoical savage. An Indian boy wounded in the same manner, but 
less able to master his emotions, howled fearfully, and flung himself upon 
the sand, biting it in the paroxysm of his anguish. Although both had been 
hit in the foot, they felt the severest pain in the loins, in the region of the 
heart, and in the arm-pits. So general a shock of the nervous system can- 
not possibly proceed from the sting alone, but is no doubt caused by some 
poisonous secretion. A robust man, wounded by a Sting Ray, died in 
Demarara under the most dreadful convulsions. 
The genus Trygon is represented by several species on our coasts. 
Le Sueur has described five. Their sting is very poisonous, though not 
often, if ever, fatal in its effects. 
Torrepo. — A short, fleshy tail and circular body are the distinguishing 
marks of the genus. The electric apparatus consists of numerous cells, like 
those of the honeycomb, and subdivided by lateral diaphragms, the intervals 
of which contain a mucous fluid. It is situated between the pectoral fins 
and the head, and is well furnished with nerves. The electric shocks given 
by the Torpedo are not so powerful as those of the Gymnotus, but are sufti- 
ciently so to enable it to stun its prey. 
The “Cramp-fish” of Cape Cod is, without doubt, a Torpedo. This fish 
has been found at Wellfleet and Truro, and formerly was quite common. A 
centleman, residing at the former place, had a dog trained to fish in shallow 
water for flounders, which he seized with his mouth. In one of his fishing 
excursions, he attempted to take a Torpedo, which gave him such a shock 
that he dropped his prey, and ran howling away; and nothing could ever 
induce him again to resume his fishing, 
Cycrostomata. The Second Family of Chondropterygit Fivis. 
This family comprises those fishes which have the mouth formed into a 
sucker. They have no pectorals or ventrals. “Their body ends in a cir- 
cular, fleshy lip, with a cartilaginous ring supporting it, and formed of the 
soldered palatals and mandibularies. ~The substance of all the vertebrie is 
traversed by a single tendinous cord, filled internally with a mucilaginous 
fluid, without contractions and enlargements, which reduces the vertebra to 
cartilaginous rays not easily distinguishable from each other. The annular 
portion is rather more solid than the rest, but not cartilaginous through its 
whole circle. They have no ordinary ribs, but the eill-ribs, noted as rudi- 
