March 31, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



339 



specimen, measuiing 16 feet from tip to tip 

 of pectorals, 10 feet, 9 inches from tip of 

 head to root of tail, 17 feet, 3 inches over all 

 (from tip of extended cephalic fins to tip of 

 tail), and the widest part of the mouth cavity 

 measured 3 feet, 9 inches along the curve. 

 Mitchill calls this ray, Cephalopterus vam- 

 pyrus, the oceanic vampire. 



The next record was made by Mr. Henry 

 W. Fowler*, Curator of Fishes of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1903. 

 This specimen was taken in a pound net lo- 

 cated about one mile out at sea off Stone Har- 

 bor, New Jersey, on September 1, 1903. Mr. 

 Fowler saw only the parts brought to him and 

 hence could give no measurements. 



Until this writing, this has constituted our 

 most northerly record in the United States of 

 the capture of Manta. However, during the 

 last week in August of this year, a crew of 

 swordfish fishermen were cruising off Block 

 Island when the man in the "pulpit" saw some 

 great flat animal swimming under him. He 

 quickly threw his harpoon into it and after 

 a fight which lasted over three hours, the great 

 ray succumbed and was towed into Block 

 Island. Fortunatelj' there was at Block 

 Island at this time an expert photographer, 

 Mrs. Florence E. Foster of this city, who was 

 engaged in making moving picture films of 

 swordfish fishing. She took a number of ex- 

 cellent pictures of this specimen of Manta, 

 particularly of its gigantic mouth. One of 

 these shows a sucking fish clinging to the in- 

 side of the upper jaw. Mrs. Foster has very 

 kindly presented to the department of ichthy- 

 ology of the American Museum a set of these 

 photographs which are unique of their kind. 

 This fish is said to have been 14 feet wide 

 between tip of the pectorals, and 7 feet long 

 from head to base of tail, and to have weighed 

 on the scales 1,686 pounds. It is the only 

 specimen known to. me that has been actually 

 weighed, and it is significant that the weight 

 runs far less than the "estimates" usually made 

 of from 2 to 5 tons. The record width is 



* Fowler, H. W., The oeeurreuce of three inter- 

 esting fishes on the New Jersey coast, Science. 

 1903, N. S. Vol. 17, pp. 595-596. 



said to be about 25 feet and the weight 10,000 

 pounds, but this has not been verified. 



Another point of interest may be noted. 

 The newspaper accounts say that there was a 

 large spine or "sting" on the tail. Mrs. Foster 

 did not see this but saw a wound on the taU 

 near the base where a spine was said to have 

 been torn ofP,. There is much controversy 

 among ichthyologists as to whether Manta is 

 spined or spineless. The late Theodore Gill, 

 the dean of American ichthyologists, once ex- 

 pressed to the writer his doubt as to whether 

 Manta has a spine, and Jordan and Evermann 

 in their "Fishes of North and Middle America" 

 doubtfully give it a spine. However, LeSueur 

 definitely says that both his (female) specimen 

 and her fretus had spines, and his figure shows 

 the spine. Mitchill found no spine, but noted 

 "a himip or knob, about the size of a hen's 

 egg, at the root of the tail behind the dorsal 

 fin." In this hvunp Holmes'* found and figured 

 a bone which seems to be either a rudimentary 

 or a degenerate spine. This is an interesting 

 matter and one deserving of further study. 



It now remains only to call attention to the 

 two localities where these giants abound and 

 in which they have been taken in large num- 

 bers. The first and longest known is the har- 

 bor of Beaufort, South Carolina, made famous 

 by William Elliott's classic work, "Carolina 

 sports, by land and water; including incidents 

 of devil-fishing, etc.", the first edition of which 

 is dated Charleston (S. C), 1846; the second, 

 New York, 1850; the thii-d. New York, 1859; 

 and an English reprint of this, London, 1867. 

 No more delightful book of its kind has ever 

 been published. 



The other locality is Captiva Inlet on the 

 southwest coast of Florida where Dr. Russell 

 J. Coles'^ operated extensively in 1909, 1914 



5 Holmes, F. S., Contributions to the natural 

 history of the American devil-fish, etc., Proceed- 

 ings Elliott Society of Natural History, 1856, 

 Vol. 1: 39-46, 3 figs. 



8 Coles, Eussell J., My fight with the devilfish. 

 American Museum Journal, 1916, Vol. 16, pp. 

 217-227, 7 figs. — Natural history notes on the 

 devilfish, Manta birostris (Walbaum) and Mohula 

 olfersi (Muller), Bulletin American Museum Nat- 

 ural History, 1916, Vol. 35, pp. 649-657, 5 figs. 



