290 Dr. Mitchill on a new species of Raja. 



le peuple un sujet d'effroi." Mr. Marsham mentions, that 

 several individuals of the Urocerus Glgas issued from the 

 planks forming the floor of a bed-room. A solitary individual 

 of the U. psyllius was taken in the neighbourhood of Edin- 

 burgh, which very likely found its way into this country by a 

 similar means. 



ICHTHYOLOGY. 



Art. XU. — The Hedgehog-Ray — a species of Fish taken OC' 

 casionally near JVew-York, in the Atlantic Ocean, and now, 

 as is believed, for the first time described ; By Samuel L. 

 Mitchill, M. and LL. D., &c. (Read before the New- 

 York Literary and Philosophical Society, June 10, 1824.) 



The fish brought me this morning by Capt. Enos Wood- 

 ruff, was taken by him with a hook and line, in the sea, off 

 Barnegat, where the water was seven fathoms deep. It had 

 been wounded so slightly that he kept it alive for several 

 days, and he supposed it might have been living yet, had it 

 not perished in consequence of the highly electrical state of 

 ihe atmosphere during the late shower, accompanied by re- 

 markably bright lightning and loud thunder. His belief is, 

 according to the opinion prevailing among fishermen, that the 

 thunder killed the fish. 



The animal undoubtedly belongs to the great family of 

 Raja, which comprehends the Rays, Skates, Torpedoes, and 

 most of the other horizontally flat fishes not appertaining to 

 the Pleuronectes, or flounder tribe. 



When drawn from its element, it had the appearance, for 

 some minutes, while its vital energy remained, and it* was 

 yet pendant from the hook, of a hedgehog : that is to say, a 

 contraction of the muscles had taken place, by which the ap- 

 proximated margin, or circumference, from the several parts, 

 resembled a bowl, or basket, of which the belly was the in- 

 ner, and the back the outer side. The tail, at the time, was 

 incurvated so much as to enter the rnoutb, or project beyond 



