65 



MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN 



VOL. XIV, 



Here or in tank No. 3, are generally to be found specimens of 

 the curious Sucker-fishes. These fishes, sometimes called Remora, 

 whereof " the shipholder," Echeneis naucrates (Tam. Appitkkutti) is 

 the most common species, are so called from the presence of a 

 sucker-like organ on the top of the head. This sucker is compound, 

 made up of a number of transverse plates set in an oval frame. 

 By its help these fishes are able to attach to ships, whales, sharks, 

 and turtles and so get carried about without effort on their part. 

 They are commonly to be seen attached by the sucker to one of 



Fig. 2.— The Common Sucker-fish {Echeneis fiuucrates). 



the walls of the tank. The power of adhesion of the sucker is 

 marvellous; even a small sucker-fish of two feet in length will 

 sustain a pail of water weighing over twenty pounds, if it be 

 allowed to get a firm grip on the inside and then be lifted by the 

 tail. Under water it can of course be made to drag a much greater 

 weight with equal ease. 



The refuse from a ship and the fragments from a whale's dinner 

 furnish easily-got meals, but not infrequently they fall victims to a 

 shark's hunger. The sucker is formed by a modification of the 

 first dorsal fin. 



Columbus, amongst other stories of the curiosities of the New 

 World he gave to Castile and Leon, described how the sucker-fish 

 was used by the Carib fishermen of the West Indies for the 

 capture of turtle and fishes. With a cord attached to its tail, it 

 was liberated from the canoe near the turtle to be captured ; to 

 this it attached, probably from no other reason than that it was a 

 large solid mass, and held on tightly enough to permit the turtle 

 to be hauled within reach. At the present day, this clever method 

 of turtle-fishing appears to be unknown to the fishermen of 

 Cuba. Parallel accounts have appeared of the practice of the 

 same ingenious method on the Zanzibar coast, and it is said that 

 Chinese fishermen also employ it. In our own tanks it exhibits 



