PISHES. 353 
rally prickly : the eggs are often found on the beach after 
a storm, in the shape of a square bag, with two horns at 
each end, as here represented. 
In this horny case the embryo is contained, and grows till 
it has acquired strength enough to burst through its prison. 
The colour of the bag is maroon, and the substance like 
thin brown parchment or leather. The female begins to 
drop these singly in the month of May, and continues to 
exclude them for several months to the number of two or 
three hundred. These cases are often washed on shore, 
and when empty are called Skate-barrows. 
The Skate sometimes attains a very large size. Wil- 
loughby speaks of one so huge, that it would have served 
one hundred and twenty men for dinner. Some natural- 
ists are of opinion that these fishes are the largest inhabi- 
tants of the deep, and that only the smallest of them come 
near the surface of the water, the biggest remaining flat at 
the bottom of the sea, where an unfathomable depth se- 
cures them against the wiles of man. 
The Tkornback resembles the Skate in its general ap- 
pearance ; the principal difference consists in the latter 
having sharp teeth, and a single row of spines upon the 
tail, while the former has blunt teeth, and several rows 
of spines both upon the back and tail. A Thornback was 
caught near the island of St. Kitt's in the year 1634, 
which measured twelve feet in length, and nearly ten in 
