95 
artillery, it had been supposed ihatasea-devil was 
heyond the main and might of human seizure — 
The dimensions of this lust fish was only fifteen feet 
the depth of the body being from three to four feet, 
having a mouth two feet and a half wide, into which 
a man entered with ease. This is at least ten feet less 
than the measurement of some of them, ‘The larg, 
est that ever came under my own eyes, was when I 
was on board a vessel of Bourdeaux on my way 
from Haiti to France. We had just cleared the last 
of the Bahamas, and as we gently scudded onward 
with the wind onour beam, we sailed close along 
one of these cephalopteras leisurely flapping and 
floundering on the surface of the broken waters, 
striking first one fin into the air and then the other, 
and presenting a bulk of living flesh, half the di- 
rensions of the vessel. A specimen of this fish from 
our inter-tropical seas figured and sent to Lacepede, 
was nearly twenty feet in size. It is this species 
that Barrére and other travellers have spoken of, 
of uncommon dimensions, seen epringing above the 
surface of the waters and splashing them to an Im- 
-mense height when falling into the sea again, It is 
these fishes that Le Vaillant saw ia his second voy: 
age to Africa, the smallest of them having been 
caught was found to be twenty five feet long and 
some thirty wide ; and it is this fish that Sonnini 
speaks of when he represents a fiat fish, seen on the 
surface larger and wider than the ship he was sails 
lng in, 
Risso gives # very interesting trait of character, 
in two of these monsters. In the month of Sept. 
