594 REPORT— 1882. 



from the enumerations of columns hitherto extant is that which J maintained in 

 my book on Gymnotus, viz. that K. dipteryifia proves a good species also by the 

 new test of the number of columns, whereby the value of this test is confirmed ; 

 and that the two large specimens of Torbaj^ belonged to another species than the 

 common European Torpedinidje. They may have been, as I ventured to surmise, 

 remnants of the T. gigantea, whose relics, of about the same size as Hunter's fish, 

 occur in the Eocene strata of Monte Bolca, and show that even in those remote 

 geological times Nature had solved the problem of building a most powerful 

 electrical machine out of the common materials of the animal tissues. 



This conclusion has become the starting-point of Professor Fritsch's researches 

 on the system of Torpedinidse, made at Alexandria, Suez, Sm}'rna, Naples, and 

 Trieste. Michele Girardi, who ten years after Hunter published some observations 

 on the electric organs of torpedo, stated that the number of columns is not always 

 the same in both organs. But previous to Professor Fritsch nobody had even 

 thought of inquiring whether the number of columns is the same in the dorsal and 

 in the ventral surface of the organs. According to Professor Fritsch, the ventral 

 surface offers the greater number, although the diii'erence decreases with the 

 accuracy of the method employed. 



Professor Fritsch, by many careful enumerations, first confirmed delle Chiaie's, 

 Rudolph Wagner's, and Professor Leuckart's statement regarding the equality of the 

 nvmibers of columns yielded by small and by large specimens of the same species. 

 He then ascertained that the number of columns in one organ of 7". marmorata and 

 ocellata varies from 400 to -500 ; that T. mantKirata probably has, on the a-\'erage, 

 a few columns more than T. ocellata ; and thfit the number of columns is ranch 

 the same in T. pnnthera, Ehrbg., from the Red Sea, and also in K. hrasiUevsis. 

 A variety of T. mnnnorafn occurs at Alexandria, Naples, and Trieste, which 

 Professor Fritsch calls anntilata on account of darlc, ring-shaped spots on its back 

 and tail ; this variety, whicli perhaps is identical with the ill-defined T. Nobiliana, 

 Bonaparte, has a greater number of columns than the common T. marmorata, viz. 

 from 500 to 600. 



These results seemed more and more to confirm the view that Hunter's large 

 torpedines were a new species. On his way home Professor Fritsch visited the 

 Zoological Museum at Vienna, hoping to meet there with a specimen of the fossil 

 T. gigantea of Monte Bolca. lu this expectation he was deceived, but the key to 

 the enigma of Hunter's big fish awaited him in another shape. 



The director of the museum, Professor Steindachner, told him that he had 

 brought from America the two only specimens existing in Europe of a very remark- 

 able species of torpedo, and they were still in his possession. This was the T. 

 occidentalis of David Humphreys Storer of Boston, which that distinguished 

 ichthyologist described forty years ago, but which is not mentioned in otherwise 

 very complete accounts of the tribe, and in Dr. Giinther's Catalogue of the Fishes 

 of the British Museum its name only is quoted in a footnote. At certain periods 

 large numbers of T. occidentalis run ashore on the sandy beach of Cape Cod. It 

 is by far the largest electric fish, as it attains a length of five feet and a weight 

 of 200 pounds. The largest gymuoti of the Amazon are said by old IMonteiro to 

 attain forty pounds weight. Its electric stroke is formidable. Captain Nathaniel 

 E. Atwood of Provincetown, to whom science is indebted for the first notice of 

 the fish, relates that several times he was ' thrown upon the ground by it as quick 

 if he had been knocked down with an axe.' 



I need not dwell here on other peculiarities of the T. Occident alls, a detailed 

 account of which is found iu Storer 's papers. The most important specific character 

 of the new species, however, evaded Storer's attention, and it fell to Professor 

 Fritsch's lot to detect it forty years later in the Vienna Museum. Professor 

 Steindachner kindly permitted the skin to be removed from one of the organs of 

 each of his fish, and Professor Fritsch found nearly the same number-of columns as 

 Hunter in his large torpedo, viz. 1,037 columns iu the better preserved specimen of 

 the two, and also about 1,000 in the other. 



There can hardly be any doubt, after this, that Hunter's fish were specimens of ] 

 T. occidentalis, drifted, we may suppose, to the English coast by the Gulf-stream. 



