398 SILTJKIDJL 



1 Gaboon. — Higgins, 1867. 



1 Gaboon.— 1888. 



1 Ogowe. — Miss Kingsley, 1895. 



1 West Africa,— D. W. Mitchell, 1852. 



3 West Africa.— A. Murray, 1866. 



1 Monsembe, Upper Congo. — Rev. J. H. Weeks, 1899. 



1 New Antwerp, Upper Congo. — Capt. Wilverth, 1897. 



1 Lake Tanganyika. — Moore, 1896. 



1 Albertville, L. Tanganyika.— Capt. Hecq, 1899. 



1 Kalambo, L. Tanganyika. — Moore, 1899. 



1 Nyamkolo, L. Tanganyika. — Dr. Cunnington, 1903. 



I entirely agree with the opinion expressed by Peters in 1868, as to the value of the 

 characters put forward to distinguish several species of Maloptemrus. The usual 

 number of anal rays in Nile specimens is 11 or 12, but it may fall to 10. The young 

 specimens from Old Calabar which have been distinguished as M. beninensis and 

 M. affinis have only 9 or 10 anal rays, but other West- African specimens which, to 

 my eye, are undistinguishable from them, have the higher number which prevails 

 in the Nile. 



Well-known to the ancient Egyptians, who have depicted it on their mural 

 paintings * and elsewhere f , and to the Arabs under the suggestive names of Baad or 

 jRaash, which means " thunder," the Electric Cat-fish was first scientifically described in 

 ForskaTs work on the animals of Egypt as Raja torpedo. This name was used by 

 Forskal through some confusion with the true Torpedo of the ancients, the Electric 

 Hay, whilst recognising, however, that it could not remain associated with the Rays 

 and suggesting the establishment for it of a genus, without, in my opinion, proposing 

 Torpedo as the generic name, which American authors, following the lead of 

 Dr. Theo. Gill J, now wish to substitute for Malopterurus. The first accurate figure 

 of the fish was given soon after by Broussonet. 



But long before this, more or less accurate accounts of the fish's electric properties 

 had appeared. As early as the Xllth century, an Arab physician, Abd-Allatif, thus 

 described them in an account of a voyage to Egypt § : — 



" Nous ne devons pas omettre parmi les animaux propres a l'Egypte le poisson connu 

 sous le nom de Sadda, parce que Ton ne peut le toucher, quand il est vivant, sans 

 eprouver un tremblement auquel il est impossible de resister ; c'est un tremblement 

 accompagne de froid, d'une torpeur excessive, d'une fornication dans les membres, et 



* It appears in a fishing-scene in the tomb of Ti, at Sakkara (unpublished photograph in the collection 

 of Prof. Hinders Petrie) ; also in the great fishiDg-scene of Griza (cf. Lepsius, Denkmaeler, Abth. ii. pi. ix.). 

 t Bepresented on the great slate palette of Naramr (cf. Quibell, Hierakopolis, &c. pi. xxix.). 

 t Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xviii. 1895, p. 161, and xxvi. 1903, p. 697. 

 § Translation by Sylvestre de Sacy, quoted by Ballowitz. 



