Skate

a group of sea fishes. There are many species. The American skates are related closely to the rays of Europe, one of which, the devilfish of the Mediterranean, attains an extreme weight of 1,000 pounds. Various rays are offered in the fish markets of London, Paris, and other European cities. The American skates, known severally as the common skate, tobacco box, big skate, and barndoor skate, are not favorites with fishermen. The skate is a broad, flat, leathery fish. The pectoral or breast fins are enormously extended, giving the body a rhomboidal shape. The barndoor skate attains a width of four feet and a length of seven feet. It moves like a shadow over the sea floor, flapping its sides slowly. The mouth, eyes, and gills are on the under surface. The mouth is wide and devouring. The skate is devoted to the newly moulted or soft-shelled lobster. The manner in which the skate captures the lobster is both curious and interesting. The skate lies motionless, scarcely distinguishable from the bottom on which it rests, being exactly of the same gray color. The lobster, crawling out from the thicket of seaweed, may happen to pass near the skate, which instantly lifts one of its broad lateral fins, the white underside of which attracts the lobster, which perhaps mistakes it for food. When once within reach the huge mouth engulfs the shellfish and the process is soon over. For this reason, it is detested by the Nova Scotian fisherman. According to Consul General Kehl, he has begun to take his revenge in a discovery that the unsightly and ravenous skates can be turned to better use than a mere fertilizer. They furnish an excellent kind of glue stock, and their bodies, being largely composed of cartilage, readily dissolve, under the proper treatment, for manufacturing purposes. This new use for the skate, the most destructive enemy of young lobsters yet discovered, will serve two valuable ends--reduce the pest to a cash basis, and save the valuable lobster for table use.