114 Mr Lamont’s Account of a Colossal Huy or Skate . 
tive of the Mediterranean, which attains a breadth of 12 feet, 
Labat describes a monstrous skate, observed by the Negroes of 
Uuadaloupe, as being 13 feet 8 inches broad, and about 10 feet 
from the snout to the insertion of the tail, which was 15 feet 
long, and 20 inches broad at its insertion, making the total 
length 25 feet. The flesh, he says, was not eaten by Euro- 
peans, but was salted by the Negroes. The monster named 
Manta, and said to suffocate the pearl-fishers^ is probably the 
same, or a similar animal. The Raia Banksiana, found in the 
West Indian seas, Sir Joseph Banks informs us, is sometimes so' 
large, that it requires seven pair of oxen to drag it along the 
ground. A species of Ray, probably the Banksiana*, was lately 
killed on the coast of America, the capture of which is thus* 
described by Mr Mitchell of New-York, in a letter to the Pre- 
sident of the New-York Lyceum of Natural History, 
“ On the 9th day of September 1823, returned from a 
cruise off* Delaware Bay the fishing smack Una. She had 
sailed about three weeks before from New-York, for the express 
purpose of catching an enormous fish, which had been reported 
to frequent the ocean a few leagues beyond Cape Henlopen. 
The adventurers in this bold enterprise have been successful. 
The creature is one of the huge individuals of the family of 
Raia, or, perhaps, may be erected, from its novelty and pecu- 
liarity, into a new genus, between the Squalus and the Aci- 
penser. Its strength was such, that after the body had been 
penetrated by two strong and well-formed gigs of the best 
tempered iron, the shank of one of them was broken off, and 
the other singularly bent The boat containing the fishermen 
was connected, after the deadly instrument had taken hold, with 
the wounded inhabitant of the deep, by a strong warp or line. 
The celerity with which the fish swam could only be compared 
to that of the harpooned whale, dragging the boat after it with 
such speed, as to cause a wave to rise on each side of the fur- 
row in which he moved, several feet higher than the boat itself. 
The weight of the fish after death was such, that three pair of 
oxen, one horse, and twenty-two men, all pulling together, with 
the surge of the Atlantic wave to help, could not convey it far to 
the dry beach. It was estimated from this (a probable esti- 
mate) to equal four tons and a half, or perhaps five tons. The 
