

60 Torpedinei in the Museums of England and Holland. 



thing was still extant of the gigantic specimen captured near 

 Torbay in 1773, and described by Hunter, From my nume- 

 rations in T. occidentalis, made in Vienna, compared with 

 Hunter's, I had been led to regard the latter as belonging to 

 that species. 



Although in the College of Surgeons, as in the British 

 Museum, the collections were in a state of change and reno- 

 vation, I was most kindly assisted in my investigations by 

 the officers of the establishment, and found, as the remains of 

 the above-mentioned fish, a well-preserved preparation (De- 

 scriptive Catalogue, no. 2176) showing the cranial capsule 

 opened, the brain, and spinal cord, as well as the system of 

 the cephalic nerves and electrical nerves ; of one of the organs 

 (the right) the inner marginal part, where the nerves enter, 

 is preserved. This extremely interesting historical prepara- 

 tion, which had been completely forgotten in England, was 

 sketched by me of the natural size, as well as this could be 

 done without opening the glass. 



After the completion of these investigations I quitted Eng- 

 land, seeing that there was no hope of finding in other towns 

 any important material in a department which, even in the 

 British Museum, was represented by unica. 1 directed my 

 steps- towards the celebrated university-city of Leyden, where 

 the hope of finding further material seemed to be most favour- 

 able. This hope was not fulfilled, as the poverty of the Ley- 



den collection in this department proved to be unexpectedly 

 great. A few hours sufficed to run through the list of the 

 electrical fishes there, and to ascertain that, even if permission 

 could have been given to prepare them (which, owing to the 

 absence of the officers, was not attainable), no important gap 

 in the Table could be filled up. It is only a further con- 

 firmation of the fact that, notwithstanding many suggestive 

 investigations, the electrical fishes are treated with great 

 neglect by the majority of naturalists. 



There was still a slight chance of obtaining further mate- 

 rial, namely to try whether the dealers in objects of natural 

 history in the capital had any thing of the kind for sale. I 

 therefore quitted Leyden in the evening of the day on which 

 I had arrived there, and took my way to Amsterdam. Con- 

 trary to my expectation, even this hope proved to be vain, as 

 the interest there at present seems to be entirely concentrated 

 upon living animals and plants. I could find no dealer in 

 Amsterdam ; and consequently it could be of no use to prolong 

 unnecessarily an expensive sojourn. On the morning of the 

 17th I reentered Berlin. 



From this latter part of my journey the most important 



