Occasional Notes. 179 
six feet in width, and many of them armed with the 
poisoned spine so much dreaded by fishermen and 
others, owing to the generally incurable wound made by 
it. But the monster of this sub-group is the great devil- 
fish or sea-devil (Ceratoptera) , large specimens, of 
about a width of 15 feet, being sometimes caught, 
stranded among the piles of the wharves. 
As a preliminary, I append the following list of these 
monsters, met with in the harbour and in the immediate 
mouth of the river. 
Carcharias glaucus Blue Shark 
,, porosus Brown ,, 
,, obscurus Dusky ,, 
,, brevirostris Short-snouted ,, 
,, oxyrhynchus Long-nosed ,, 
Galeocerdo tigrinus Tiger „ 
Zygaena malleus Hammer-headed ,, 
,, tudes ,, „ 
Ginglymo stoma cirrhatum Nurse ,, 
Pristis perrotteti Saw-fish or comb-fish 
,, peclinatus ,, ,, 
Aetobatis narinari Eagle-ray 
Rhinoptera quadrilobata Cow-nosed ray 
Ceratoptera vampyrus Sea-devil. 
Food of Sphex larvae. — The curious habits of the 
Sphegidae, in providing food for their helpless and footless 
grubs during the period when they are enclosed in the 
protective cases in which they undergo their metamor- 
phosis, are well-known ; and it is equally well-known 
that the parents select all sorts and stages of other 
insect forms — even to the venomed honey-bee, and the 
Y2 
