1094 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
crushing of hard-shelled animals. These flat, plate-like 
or tuberous teeth are also characteristic of different 
genera and species. They are set as if in a mosaic, 
fitted beside one another like the stones in a pavement 
(■ dentes pavimentati ), and arranged, in the longitudinal 
direction of the body, in several rows or in a quincunx, 
with the pointed corners wedged in between each other 
(fig. 310). Here, as in the Sharks, the largest forms 
have relatively the smallest teeth. On account of the 
differences that prevail in this respect, Muller and 
Henle" distinguished among the forms now under 
consideration two families, the Myliobatides and Cepha- 
lopterce , which Gunther 6 united into a single family 
Fig. 310. Jaws of an Eagle-Ray ( Myliobatis aqitila ). After 
Agassiz and Gunther. 
under the name and with the definition given above, 
but divided into two subfamilies, Myliobatina and 
Ceratopterina 0 . 
Our knowledge of the gigantic but comparatively 
small-toothed Rays of the latter subfamily is indeed ex- 
tremely defective; but they have long afforded material 
for fabulous narratives, and should probably be included 
in the list of marine monsters that have posed as the 
great sea-serpent. Their true homes are the great 
oceans and the Mediterranean. As an example of their 
magnitude we may cite, after Mitchill, the dimensions 
of a Ceratoptera vampyrus taken in September, 1823, 
in Delaware Bay, on the east cost of the United States'*. 
Its length was 10 ft. 9 in. (32 3 / 4 dm.), exclusive of the 
tail, which measured 4 ft. (12 1 / 5 dm.), and its breadth 
between the tips of the pectoral fins 18 ft. (nearly 55 
dm.). Its weight was so considerable that three yoke 
of oxen, a horse, and twenty-two men were required 
to haul it ashore. The pectoral fins, as well as the 
cephalic fins, which in the above instance were 2 ft. 6 
in. (7 2 / 3 din.) long, may be folded over so as to meet 
at the mouth; the latter fins are besides mobile in all 
directions. These Rays often swim in pairs, male and 
female. They cleave the water with rapid strokes, like 
the flight of a bird of prey; and in pursuit of their 
victims, which consist principally of Cephalopods and 
fish, they display a litheness in their movements which 
one would hardly credit to a Ray. Sometimes they 
swim so high that their fins emerge above the surface 6 ; 
and when the cephalic fins are thus exposed to view, 
the seaman compares them to horns, and hence confers 
upon the fish such names as ox, cow, or calf, or even 
that of the prince of darkness, which appears in the 
form of Bevil-fisli. Others have compared the move- 
ments of these Rays to the flitting of a bat, whence 
the name of Vampire-Ray. On the Irish coast a small 
specimen of a Ceratoptera has once been met with 
(about 1828). 
Genus MYLIOBATIS f . 
Cephalic fi.ns (on the sides of the snout and at its tip) in the same plane as the pectoral. Molars in the middle of 
the jaws of adult specimens much (3 — 8 times) broader than long , and larger than the lateral teeth , which are 
set in several rows. 
This genus too, which contains 7 or 8 species, can so great as those of Ceratoptera: one species, the Me- 
boast of considerable dimensions of body, though not diterranean Myliobatis bovina, often attains, according 
a System. Beschreib. Plagiostoin., Berlin 1841, pp. 176 and 184. 
b Cat. Brit. Mus., Fish., vol. VIII, p. 488. 
c Cephaloptera, the genus established by the elder Dumeril, has necessarily been altered to Dicerobatis, the name more recently con- 
ferred upon it by Blainville, Cephaloptera having been previously employed as a generic name among birds. 
d Isis, vol. XXV, 1832, p. 1063. According to Brown-Goode ( Fisher . Industr. U. S., sect. I, p. 666) this species attains a breadth 
of 30 ft. (9 m.) between the tips of the pectoral fins. 
e Thus we may perhaps explain the account of the “sea-serpent” as seen by Lieutenant Hayes from H. M. yacht Osborne in June 
1877. See Henry Lee, Sea Monsters Unmasked, Handbooks, Intern. Fisher. Exhib. London 1883, p. 94, fig. 23. 
/ C. Dumeril, in Cuv., Regn. Anim., ed. 1, tom. II, p. 137. From yvllag, millstone, and jazig, Ray. 
