ELECTRIC SILURE. 17 



in front : mouth furnished with six long beards^ 

 two on the upper^ and four on the lower lip : body 

 elegantly banded with numerous transverse dusky 

 stripes placed in a tern ate manner: fins pale, with 

 the rays barred with black : dorsal unarmed and 

 situated near the middle of the back : tail sharply 

 forked. Native of the Indian and South- American 

 rivers. 



ELECTRIC SILURE. 



Silurus Electricus. S. cinerascens, versus caudam maculis nigri" 



cantibus mrins, pinna dorsali unica adiposa, cirris sex„ 

 Subcinereous Silure^ variegated towards the tail with blackish 



spotSj with single^ adipose dorsal fin, and six beards. 

 Silurus electricus. S, pinna dorsali unica adiposa, cirris sex, 



Lin. Si/st. Nat, Gmel. p* 1354, Brouss, act. Paris, ami. 



1782. 



Length about twenty inches : head and fore-parts 

 very broad and depressed : on the upper lip two 

 cirri ; on the lower four : teeth small and numerous. 

 Native of the African rivers : observed by Forskal 

 in the Nile : possesses a degree of electric or gal- 

 vanic power, but in a much slighter degree than 

 the Torpedo. Forskal in his Famia Arabica im- 

 properly names it Raja Torpedo. 



I 



V. V. p. I. 



