THE ELECTRIC EEL 
49 
fish/’ or electric ray, to the trawlers of Cornwall or the 
Channel, seems to have appealed less to the fancies of 
the sailors of old, than the new though less mysteri- 
ous powers of the monsters, great and small, which 
rushed beneath their keels in hyperborean seas. 
Possibly the powers of the “ torpedo ” were too well 
known to excite curiosity, though it is difficult to 
believe that a creature which sometimes reaches a 
bulk of ioo lbs. weight, and can emit an electrical 
discharge strong enough to kill a duck, or to cause in 
the human arm a “ creeping sensation felt in the 
whole limb up to the shoulder, accompanied by a 
violent trembling, and sharp pain in the elbow,” 
followed by loss of sensation for an hour, was not as 
suggestive to sailors’ fancies as the tentacles of the 
cuttle-fish, or the sucking-discs of the remora. But 
if the fabulous terrors of the last were enough to deter 
the boldest mariners who sailed beyond Thule, it is 
matter for congratulation that early explorers were 
unacquainted with the powers and proportions of a 
monster of still more formidable mould, the electric 
eel of Southern America. Its mere aspect is lurid, 
sombre, and repulsive. Its belly glows like red-hot 
iron, as if fresh from the lake of living fire. Its back 
is dark and shiny, as if tinged by inky Cocytus. 
Around its lips and jaws are glowing spots like 
bubbles of hot metal. The colours meet in a line 
along the side ; and the creature, when drawn from 
the water, looks as though formed of two welded 
portions of iron, the one hot, the other cold, just 
