94 
LONG-KOSED SKATE. 
Fioin. the snout to the widest portion of the pectoral fin in 
a straight line twenty-eight inches and a half, and along the 
curve thirty inches, the snout being narrow as well as prom- 
inent, and forming an acute angle backward to behind the 
eyes, where it spreads suddenly wider; the greatest width 
behind the middle of the disk. The eyes not large, and at 
considerably more than half the distance from the snout to 
the middle of the body. Behind the eyes there are obscure 
spines; the mouth narrow; teeth sharp; nostrils lobed. The 
body smooth, much depressed, and of a light lead-colour; the tail 
rather rough, with a row of large hooked spines on the border 
on each side. Fins on the tail near each other, nearly the 
length of one of them from the end. On the under side it 
is spotted with dusky marks, as in the Common Skate. This 
example was a female, and in all instances of this family the 
males are more abundantly furnished with spines than the 
females. The comparative proportions of this species, laid 
by the side of the Common Skate and the Burton Skate, 
which is another of this family with a protruded snout, are 
found to he, that a Common Skate of five feet in length 
measured eleven inches and a quarter, and a Burton Skate 
of six feet in length one foot from the snout to the mouth; 
when a fish of this species, of much less size, measured 
between the same points fourteen inches, thus extending to 
more than one third part of its greatest breadth, and more 
than one fourth of its whole length. In the Common Skate 
the latter proportion is less than one fifth, and of the Burton 
Skate one sixth. 
