248 . • HISTORY OF THE FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS 



When the fish is placed upon its under side, and the 



ty of the disk is 



turned backward, the nostrils are observed about three inches beneath its edge ; they 

 are covered above by a membranous prolongation, formed by a fold of the skin which 

 arises from their exterior anffk and is continued to the median line ; the free edge of 

 tliis fold is live eights of an inch wide at its greatest width. A second fold commences 



upper angle, ftnd passes downward and inward to the middle # 



of the 



edge of the aperture. A third fold commences near the middle of the second, and is di- 

 rected outward and a little downward. The nasal cavity is divided by a horizontal 

 plate into two portions, and at right angles to this proceed numerous small septa going 

 to the upper and lower margin of the nostrils. 



The first dorsal fin, which is three inches and a quarter long and five inches high, is 

 situated at the posterior portion of the pectorals, one half of its base being posterior to 



those I ins. 



The srcond dorsal fin is two inches long, and two inches and three quarters high; it 

 is two and a half inches back of the first dorsal, and three inches anterior to the com- 

 mencement of the upper lobe of the caudal fin. 



The greatest length of the pectorals is two feet, and their greatest breadth is fifteen 

 inches. * 



The vent nils are ten inches long, and five and a half wide. The anus is large, and is 

 situated beneath the middle of the ventrals. 



The caudal fin is nearly triangular; its lower portion is the larger; the depth of this 



* 



fin, at its posterior extremity when expanded, is eleven inches ; its posterior margin is 

 straight. 



Length, two to five feet. 



Remarks. In the January number of the u American Journal of Science and Arts " 



* 



for 1843, 1 made a slight reference to a species of torpedo, which had been taken a few 

 weeks previously upon the coast of Massachusetts. The description of a species captured 

 on the coast of Ireland, published by William Thompson, Esq., Vice President of the Bel- 

 fast Natural History Society, in the "Annals of Natural History," answered so well to my 

 specimen, that I was led to suppose it must be the nobiliana, Buanaparte. When, how- 

 ever, I carefully compared with mine, the description and figure of the foreign species, 

 contained in the second edition of Yarrell's British Fishes, I found no slight differences 

 in the form of the disk of the body, iu the size of the pectoral and caudal fins, and in 

 the situation and form of the temporal orifices in the two specimens ; and at once sus- 

 pected the American fish must be an undescribed species. As Yarrell's figure was en- 



