Electrical Fishes. 99 



the body on each side of the massive flattened head. The current, 

 it appears, passes perpendicularly from the underside of the body 

 to the back or vice versa. The dorsal side, according to 

 Packard's account, is positive, the ventral side negative, and the 

 discharges are wholly under the control of the fish. In the Irish 

 specimen referred to above this control was unfortunately so 

 strong, not to say stubborn, that the creature refused to give any 

 exhibition of its powers, though every inducement, persuasive 

 and otherwise, was given to it to do so. M. de Quatrefages has 

 recorded the variability of the Torpedo's electric potency, in 

 some examples it is very feeble but in others it is so great as to 

 be dangerous to man and quite fatal to birds and small animals. 

 Repeated discharges weaken its power ; but Professor Owen 

 found that under the influence of strychnine the discharges 

 become more powerful. They are accompanied by sounds per- 

 ceptible by the phonograph. Thus a weak discharge provokes 

 a short croaking sound, but a prolonged discharge of three or 

 four seconds duration is marked by a somewhat lengthened 

 groan. Ordinary muscular contractions, as is well known, are 

 attended by faint sounds like the distant rumbling of carriage 

 wheels. 



The two common Skates,i?«/rt: batis SLndR.clavata it has been 

 found possess curious organs inthe tail which Babuchin styled 

 pseudo-electric. There is every ground for speaking of them, how- 

 ever, as truly electrical. They are, it istrue, diminutive, and Prof. 

 Burdon-Sanderson's researches ten years ago showed that their 

 discharges were very feeble, but it is possible that the}- are 

 either simply rudimentary and progressive in condition or degen- 

 erate and retrogressive, and thus differ from those of the Torpedo 

 rather in degree of development than in kind. Into the vigourous 

 discussion on this matter, participated in by the Duke of Argyll, 

 Prof J. C. Ewart and others in the columns oi Nature, it is not 

 necessary to enter here. Certainly the huge specimen of a skate, 

 eight or nine feet across the " wmgs," which it fell to my lot to 

 examine on one occasion, six years ago, possessed electrical organs 

 resembling small corn-cobs situated on each side of the tail. No 



