128 
TORPKDO. 
Torpedo Galvanii, Risso; pi. 3, f. 3. Une tache. T. uni- 
maoulata. 
“ nohiliana, Yabeell; vol. ii, p. 546. Walsh’s ex- 
periments were made on this species. 
Although the figures of these fishes in books of Natural 
History are in g'^neral sufficiently characteristic, there have 
usually been defects, the cause of which may properly form a 
portion of their history. 
It is only for a short time after the fish has been taken from 
the water that the disk preserves its shape and dimensions. 
Soon after death a shrinking takes place on the upper surface; 
by which the plumpness of its appearance is diminished, and 
the borders become contracted; so that the lower surface 
gradually curls upward, and occupies the margin to the extent of 
several inches. But if it happen that the body has been placed 
in a position by which its parts have sustained a strain, the 
proportions become stretched into an unnatural shape, much 
unlike that which it bore when alive. Risso’s figures appear 
to have been drawn from examples which had been thus dealt 
with; and although boasted of by him, are by far the worst 
anywhere to be found. The particular changes thus referred 
to are noticed by Mr. Dillwyn, in his “Fauna of Swansea:” 
— “When alive the length was found to be forty-one inches 
and a half, the greatest breadth twenty-nine inches and a half; 
the breadth of the caudal fin at its extremity nine inches, and 
the weight above forty-four or forty-five pounds. On the 
following day it measured forty-two inches by thirty, and it 
then weighed forty-three pounds and a half. In stuffing the 
specimen the length, to my surprise, has considerably increased, 
though the other dimensions remained nearly unchanged, and 
now the extreme length is forty-nine inches; the upper lobe 
twenty-four inches, the lower lobe ten inches and a half, the 
tail eight inches and a half, and the caudal fin six inches long. 
The breadth or greatest diameter of the upper lobe is thirty 
inches, and of the lower lobe fifteen inches, and the caudal fin 
has contracted at its extremity to be only eight inches broad.” 
Our description is from an example taken in a trawl a little 
on the outside of the Breakwater in Plymouth Sound. The 
length two feet six inches; form of the disk nearly chxular; 
