176 The Devil-fish of Jamaica. 



sentinels to keep watch for the safety of the devil?, and to 

 guide their movements ; that these sentinels passed over their 

 backs when they rose too high, and repassed under them till 

 they descended deeper, disappearing and being seen no more 

 for a time, but reappearing and resuming their post as sentries, 

 when the fish again ascended to the surface. These remarkable 

 habits render the story of the young devil-fish swimming on 

 the mother's back a probable occurrence. " During the three 

 days," says Le Vaillant, ' ' that the calm continued, and the ship 

 remained motionless, these occurrences were many times re- 

 peated before the eyes of all on board as to each of the three 

 monsters/'' These facts relate to the Remora or sucking-fish, 

 but they illustrate the habit of the sea-devils, and possibly ex- 

 plain their association with their young, and their appearing to 

 swim on the back of their mother-fish. 



I have said the fish taken on the 10th of April in Kingston 

 harbour, aud named by me Oephaloptera Massenoidea, was a 

 gravid female. The foetus was in the stage just prior to birth. 

 The colour on the back was as intensely violet as in the 

 mother sea-devil, and the whip tail just as firm ; the radial 

 cartilaginous plates of the head lay flattened. The flukes of 

 fins were folded over the back, lapping one another thus : — 



The fins when extended were 16 inches across, the length of 

 the body from head to the tail 24 inches. 



Cephaloptera are taken in other harbours of Jamaica be- 

 side Kingston. On the 4th of May, 1854, a female devil-fish 

 was caught in Montego Bay, another being seen at the same 

 time in company. There being no shoal-banks about Montego 

 Bay, the sort of grounds they resort to, these fishes had 

 probably strolled from the Cayos opposite, the " Jardinas, or 

 Gardens of the Queen," on the coast of Cuba, a prodigious 

 feeding ground for all our tropical fishes. 



[P.S. — Since the above was written the Hon. Richard Hill 

 has communicated an account of another " sea-devil," caught in 

 Kingston harbour on the 18th of April. In this specimen the 

 cranial arms were flat, and not coiled up as in the fish of the 

 10th ; the position of the eyes was different ; the tail was only 

 two feet long — quite a rudimentary proportion compared with 

 the body, which was nine feet six inches long, and fifteen feet 

 six inches wide across the expanded pectoral fins.] 



