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 do so for several months, to the number of two or three hundred. In some parts of Cumberland they are called, by the common people, Skatebarrows, on account of their resemblance to the barrows which are carried by two men, and used for the conveyance of goods, &c.
The Skate sometimes attains a very large size. Willoughby speaks of one so huge that it would have served one hundred and twenty men for dinner. Some naturalists are of opinion that these fishes are the largest inhabitants 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 deep secures them against the wiles of man.
Nine species of the Skate or Ray are found on the British coasts.