deserves his name.

Many of the Skates or Rays wear terrible spikes. The Starry Ray (p. 52,
No. 7) is not easy to handle, dead or alive, for he has spines all over
his body. The Thornback is another ugly fellow of this family, having
spines on his back and a double row of them down his tail. Fishermen are
careful to avoid the lash of this armed tail. The Sting Ray shows us
still another weapon. At the end of its long tail it has a horrible,
jagged three-inch spike. As this fish likes to bury itself in wet sand,
bathers sometimes tread on it. In a flash the tail whips round! A
poisonous slime covers the spike, causing great pain to the unlucky
bather.

Several poisonous fish are common near our coast. You may have seen the
one called the Great Weaver, also its small cousin, the Sting Fish. The
Weaver is dreaded by fishermen; for the spines on its back fin, as well
as the one on its gill-cover, cause poisoned wounds. They are grooved,
to hold a very poisonous slime.

Some fish have the power to kill their prey, and stun their enemies, at
a distance! Instead of a spiny defence, they are _armed with
electricity!_ The best-known sea-fish of this sort is the Electric Ray,
also called the Cramp Fish or Torpedo (_see_ p. 48). It is a clumsy fish
about a yard long, and very ugly. Being too slow to catch its swift prey
in fair chase, it stuns them with an electric shock, and then eats them.
The electric power comes from the body of the Ray; if it wishes it can
send a deadly shock through any fish which ventures near. Without chance
of escape, it is at once stunned, and falls helpless.

We come now to some formidable dangers of the deep--big strong fish, so