SKATE.' 457 



transmit an electric shock from the depth of the sea vid 

 the net which encloses her, and numb the arm of the 

 sturdy fisherman in the boat, so as to cause him to let it 

 fall, as originally stated by Oppian, still continues, as it 

 was in Eedi's time, the current testimony of Mediter- 

 ranean fishermen. The strongest-armed lazzarone will 

 relate that in pulling up several narkes together, he 

 has sometimes felt rheumatism in his shoulders . all 

 the next day. As for what ^Elian's respectable mother 

 told her over-credulous son when a boy, which he 

 does not repudiate as a man, — viz. that water in which 

 numb-fish have been kept becomes itself electric, — as 

 it rests upon no other than that good old lady's autho- 

 rity, may at least be deemed a doubtful fact. Different 

 authors have described the sensations of a shock from 

 the narke differently. Oppian compares it to the dis- 

 tress of a man ' imder an oppressive lethargy, struggling 

 in the adamantine chains of nightmare, trying to ex- 

 tricate himself, but unable to stir a finger.'* Eedi thus 

 records his personal experience of its effects: — 'I had 

 scarcely secured the fish, and held it tight in my hand, 

 when an uneasy tingling, at first confined to the part, but 

 afterwards spreading up the whole grm to the shoulder, 

 compelled me to relinquish my hold.' Reaumur reports 

 ' the numbness produced by the narke' to be ' quite un- 

 like that produced by any other agency. One feels,' says 

 he, ' along the whole arm a kind of astonishment (une 

 espece d'etonnement) impossible to describe, but which, 

 as far as sensations admit of comparison, is not tudike 

 that painful one experienced when the ' fimny-bo'"-e' has 

 been struck smartly by something hard.' 



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 a(7Tepi^Tls dre detrphs fireiyopivoio ^apvveC 

 Toirjv yvioireSriv rex^^i^''''^'' 'X^''"'' '"'f""?- 



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