ELECTRICAL FISHES

a name given to fishes po e ing the property of communicating an electric shock when touched with the hand or any electric conductor. One of the best known is the electric eel (Gym not us electric us), a native of South America. It is of nearly equal thickne throughout; head and tail obtuse; ordinary length, 34 to 4 feet. The seat of the four electrical organs is aleng the under side of the tail, and they are said to po e the power of knocking down a man, and of painfully numbing the affected limb for several hours after the shock. After a few discharges, however, the faculty of producing a shock is impaired, and an interval of rest is required for a new storage of force. Similar but le marked powers are po e ed by an African cat-fish (Mal apter urus electric us), in which the electric organ invests the entire body as a sort of jacket under the skin. Still feebler in this respect are the electric rays, of which the best known (species of Torpedo) are native to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Atlantic, and Pacific @ceans. Here the electric organ consists of a large ma on each side of the front part of the body.