126 
TORPEDO. 
These electric organs are two-fold, and one of them is lodged 
on each side of the head and gills. They are formed of very 
numerous perpendicular pyramids, the ends of which are co\ ered 
by the integuments clothing the back and under part of the 
body. Each column appears like a mass of clear jelly, but on 
close examination it is seen to be formed of membranous plates, 
fastened at their margins to a case or capsule; and each one 
separated from the next by a small quantity of albuminous fluid. 
Each cell thus formed has its own separate lining, and the 
covering which encloses the whole forms the seat on which the 
blood-vessels and nerves, supplying this organ with their special 
fluids, are spread abroad, before they' enter to execute their 
specific functions. The blood conveyed thither is of the purest 
kind, and the nerves are such as are well fitted to convey a 
very large supply of their proper influence; the first four of 
them being as large as the spinal cord itself, from which all 
the other functions of animal life are bestowed on the body. 
As no other special function resides in the pectoral fins, and 
the general perceptions of the Torpedo are dull and inactive, 
it is to be concluded that these nerves supplying the electric 
organs are formed thus large, for the sole purpose of conveying 
the required energy from the nervous centre, where it is 
prepared, to the mass of cells; the proper function of which is 
to accumulate and retain it, until the instinctive feeling of the 
fish shall cause it to be discharged, either as a weapon of 
defence, or to supply its need, in the disabling and capture of 
its prey. 
The ancients possessed but little discrimination in detecting 
the smaller dilFerences which mark the distinction between 
nearly allied species of any kind of creatures; and they were 
further prevented from assigning to those difierences any 
important value from the general opinion of philosophers, that 
variations from a known type of form were to be ascribed to 
a kind of bastardy, arising from the indiscriminate conjunction 
of the sexes of kindred kinds. It is in modern times only 
that the last-named supposition has been judged unsound; and 
we owe it to naturalists of late date that we are able to assign 
what is known of the variations of the Torpedo, as it is found 
in the seas of Europe, to two separate species, with the pro- 
bability that there may also be a third. 
