﻿July, 1856.] 



ELLIOTT SOCIETY, 



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South-eastern coast of the United States, is by Catesby, who published his 

 " Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands" in 1731-'43 

 in London. He does not fully describe the animal, but simply notices the 

 existence of such a fish in the harbour of " Charles-Town" He called it 

 " Diabolus Marinus" Sea Devil or " Devil-fish" See Catesby, Vol. I., p. 32. 



Dr. S. L. Mitchell, in 1823 (September 15), read before the New York 

 Lyceum of Natural History, a description of a fish, taken in the Atlantic 

 Ocean, near the entrance of Delaware Bay. He does not consider it the same 

 as Catesby's Devil-fish, but " a nearly similar animal" and named it " The 

 Vampire of the Ocean" " Cephaloptera vampyrus." See Annals of Ly- 

 ceum, N. Y., 1823, Vol. I, p. 23. From his description we make the follow- 

 ing extracts. " The skin of the back was brown approaching to black ; of the 

 belly, black calicoed with milk white. There were neither scales nor spi- 

 nous processes, nor proper prickles, on any part of it. There were two 

 upper lips, an outer and an inner, and both destitute of teeth. There was 

 a single lower lip, beset with small rough processes, resembling those of a 

 rasp, instead of teeth. There was one dorsal fin, somewhat forward of the 

 root of the tail. It was of atriangnlar form and consisted of thirty-six rays. 

 In lieu of a second dorsal fin there was a lump, bump or callous knob, a few 

 inches behind it. The tail was covered with rather a coarser set of eminen- 

 ces, like a file or rasp than the other parts, and they were not so keenly sca- 

 brous ; there was no caudal fin at the end, nor any aculeus or sting on the 

 upper side, near the junction with the body. There was no proper bone in 

 the skeleton except in one spot, a hump or knob about the size of a hen's 

 egg at the root of the tail, behind the dorsal fin. The individual brought 

 here was a female. The species is viviparous, for another female that was 

 struggling after having been wounded, brought forth in her agony a living 

 young one, as Capt. Potter related. And Mr.Patchen, while he showed me 

 the orifices through which sucking is probably performed, declared, that on 

 dissection mammary organs were found which discharged a pailful of milk." 



In a paper read before the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 August 17th, 1824, by M. Lesueur, he describes a Devil-fish then in the 

 Philadelphia Museum, which, he says, " was captured near the entrance of 

 Delaware bay, and brought there towards the end of August, 1822." He 

 also says " another large specimen of Ray was captured at the same time 

 and place, and was transported to New York, where it was exhibited under 

 the name of the Vampire of the Ocean. An account of this specimen was 

 read to the Lyceum of that city by their late President (Mitchell?), and pub- 

 lished in the Annals of that Institution, with a figure." 



Lesueur considered the Philadelphia specimen the same species as the one 

 found in the Mediterranean, and at the Azores, and adopts for it the name 

 " Cephaloptera Giorna" His description differs greatly from Mitchell's, as 



he says " tail four or five inches longer than the body, armed above, beyond 



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