Gaane Bich of Plonda 
of their own making, and it is in such positions that they may 
be particularly dangerous, through no fault of their own, to the 
too eager surf-fisherman who wades bare-footed in the muddy 
water, careless of such risks. The whip rays seem of wide 
distribution under a variety of names, and a striped species 
has been taken on the Irish coasts. It would be difficult to 
know what use the delicate tail—usually stripped bare of its 
skin an inch from the tip—can be to this fish. The armament 
of spikes at the base can be erected at will, and the fish is able 
to bend up its back, much after the fashion of the scorpion, 
so as to bring them to bear on enemies attacking it in front. 
Each spike is serrated, its innumerable small points setting 
inwards, and the whole is enveloped in a skin so thin as to be 
ruptured by the mere act of withdrawing it from some body 
into which the fearful weapon has been thrust. My own 
impression is that portions of this skin remain in the wound, 
and set up that local poisoning that gives to such an act of 
aggression the popular name of “stinging.” 
There are even larger rays on that coast than the whip 
ray. The giant ray, for instance, is one of the largest of 
existing fishes, and specimens have been captured measuring 
as much as twenty feet across the “wings.” Indeed, the 
Spanish and half-caste pearl divers call this ghoulish monster 
the “ blanket,” from a fixed belief (though no one can have 
survived to tell the tale) that it envelops its victims as in a 
blanket, and then devours them at leisure, This sobriquet 
gI 
