452 PEOSE HAlIBtTTICS. 



of serrated teeth at each side ;* every tooth of which 

 being in itself a small saw^ and very sharp, readily enters 

 the flesh on the slightest wag of the tail ; and once en- 

 tered can only be drawn out again by making a torn 

 and ragged opening. The worst and most dangerous 

 wound, however, is when the elastic tail dashes the appa- 

 ratus, saws and all, its whole length, half a foot or more, 

 into an unfortunate fisherman's thigh (as has frequently 

 happened, in spite of the ordinary precautions), dragging 

 it out again to make a new lunge before the unhappy 

 victim has had time to escape ; and so expert is the skate 

 in this small-sword exercise, and so swiftly does stroke 

 follow stroke, that persons who have seen it in operation 

 report that, but for the spoutings of fresh blood, and the 

 larger display of raw surface, they would have declared 

 the weapon motionless all the time. No wound with 

 which surgery is acquainted is more hazardous than this : 

 the soft parts are cut, contused, torn, jagged, intermixed, 

 and mammocked in every conceivable way ; and besides 

 all the dangers of an ugly flesh-wound, there is peril too 

 from the tearing of the fascias and tendons, and lest the 

 periosteum of the bone should be scraped and exposed. 

 The terrible sufferings inflicted by this atrocious caudine 

 weapon — ^which is borne by four other colossal skates as 

 well as by the sea-eagle — ^has caused it to be regarded 

 with as much superstitious reverence by fishermen, as 

 was the tail of his music-master, Chiron, by the youth- 

 ful Achilles. Every lazzarone has some sinistre to teU 

 of a brother, cousin, or comrade, who was either many 

 months an inmate of the Seaman's Hospital before he 

 could follow his craft again, or who was at the very time 

 a cripple in that of the Incurables. 



Upon this dart the sea-eagle depends as much for sup- 



* Certain wild American tribes use this instrument as a saw. 



