LEKNEAD^E. 309 



dolphin (and not even on every individual)." He gives 

 a figure of it slightly magnified,* and repeats the repre- 

 sentation of it in situ on the tunny, f as previously given 

 by Rondeletius. " It adheres so firmly," he remarks, 

 " that it cannot be removed without tearing it. It sucks 



O 



the blood of the fish, like as the leech does, till it falls off 

 through very fulness, and then dies." On this account 

 these fishes (the tunny especially is mentioned) are poor 

 and bad during the height of summer, though, owing to 

 their being so sadly tormented by these plagues, they are 

 more easily caught at that time than they are in winter, 

 at which time they are in better condition.! T ne speci- 

 men he describes as having examined himself was, he says, 

 of a white colour, and was found adhering " ad pisceni 

 Pagrum." 



Pernetty, in his ' Histoire d'un Voyage aux lies 

 Malouines, fait en 1763-4,' published at Paris in 1770, 

 found apparently the same species adhering to a tunny, 

 and gives a figure of it, which seems to represent pretty 

 nearly the animal delineated by Gesner. 



More recently, M. de Blainville, in the 'Journal de 

 Physique,' xcv, 1822, has figured, from a MS drawing of 

 M. Marion de Proce, a similar species, which he has called 

 Lerneomyzon incisa, and which I have no doubt is the 

 ottrrpoc, or Asilus marinm of Aristotle, Pliny, Rondeletius, 

 and Gesner, and nearly identical with the animal figured 

 by Pernetty. 



Boccone, a Sicilian gentleman, in his c Recherches et 

 Observations naturelles,' published at Amsterdam in 1674, 

 informs us, that at Messina his attention was called by 

 M. Scilla, a famous painter and antiquary of that town, to 

 the fact that the Xiphias, or sword-fish, was well known 

 to the fishermen on the coast to be tormented by a parasite 

 which they called Sanguisuca. The only information he re- 

 ceived was that the motion of the creature was like that of a 



* P. 112, figure annexed, 

 f P. 1152, figure annexed. 

 % Pp. 112,113. 



