ECHENEIS VITTATA. 79 



yet, on the otlier hand, it would be rash altogether to deny their truth. 

 Like most such popular accounts or vulgar errors, they may probably be 

 founded on some real circumstance, or natural occurrence, distorted by ex- 

 aggeration into the wonderful. There would be nothing marvellous, that a 

 Lamprey, of even ordinary size, fixed to the keel or rudder of a boat, sus- 

 pended by one end and struggling in the water, should, as related by 

 Rondelet upon his own experience,* greatly retard such vessel's progress, 

 render its course unsteady, and baffle the exertions of its rowers. 



Again, it is remarkable that the Dalmatians at this day, as Schneider in 

 his note on -iElian, ii. 17, mentions upon the authority of the Abbe Fortis, 

 possess the same idea regarding a fish they call Packlara, which the 

 ancients held regarding their Echeneis or Remora. So strange a notion is 

 not likely to have originated from communication with others amongst a 

 wild and illiterate population ; or, again, to have sprung up spontaneously 

 and independently without some real ground. Without recourse, there- 

 fore, to the marvellous or extraordinary on one hand, or to mere fiction on 

 the other, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose, that the accidental at- 

 tachment to the rudder of a small-sized vessel of some fish like Rondelet's 

 Lamprey may have originated ati impression, which has subsequently been 

 generalized, and transferred to other sucking-fishes, in themselves incapable 

 of producing like effects. -j- 



The modem genus Echeneis seems to have obtained little attention 

 from the later ichthyologists, who have not added more than three or four 

 species to the two enumerated by Linnseus. Rare, and occurring only acci- 

 dentally, or at remote intervals of time and place, it has been difficult to in- 



* " His omnibus quae nulli alii melius quam lampetrse nostrae competere possunt, accedit ex- 

 perientia ipsa, cujus primum me admonuit Gulielmus Pelicerius episcopus Monspeliensis singulari 

 eruditione prseditus, ex qua experientia constat lampetram navibus iis prsesertim quae recens pice illitae 

 sunt oreadhaerere, picis, ut aiunt, exugendae gratia. Quod si triremis clavo os affixerit, ejus impetum re- 

 tardari certum est. Id nobis evenit Romam proficiscentibus cum clarissimo Cardinali Tunionio. Vi- 

 dimus enim optimae triremis, cujus citissimo cursu vehebamur, impetum inhibitum, cujus incertam cau- 

 sam cum vectores perquirerent, tandem compertum fuit lampetrae ore clavo affixEe \-i id effici ; quae capta, 

 et convivio apposita, morae allatae poenas dependit. Cujus rei locupletissimos testes habeo nobiles et 

 graves viros, qui eadem navi vehebantur." — Rond. de Pise. 402. 



+ Rondelet seems to have taken a similar view of the matter. After transcribing from Aristotle a 

 dissertation on the reason of the use and power of the rudder, he proceeds : " Quare si recta et celerrime 

 currat navis, et echeneis, ore clavo vel puppi afRxo, caudam vel se totam, modo in dextrum, modo in 

 sinistrum moveat, necesse est etiam in prora motionem hanc percipi, et ad echenei'dis motum ambi- 

 guum, ambigue quoque moveri, ac proinde impetum ejus inhiberi, cum ab Aristotele demonstratum sit, 

 et experientia comprobatum, ad exiguam unius extremi motionem, extremum alteram, atque adeo to- 

 tam molem continuam nutare. Lampetra igitur verbi gratia, vel quavis alia remora, non in ipsa nave 

 neque ipsius lateribus sed puppi vel gubemaculo adhaerente, et caudam vel reliquum corpus motitante 

 fluctuat navis, nee progreditur, nee ultra fertur, non aliter quam si tranquiUo mari in prospero et celeri 

 navis cursu gubemator imperitiorem ad gubemandum admittat, qui clavum recte tenere non possit : 

 firmissime enim in cursu tenendus est, ne fluctuet navis, alioqui mox retardabitur mpetus." — Rond. 

 de Pise. 439, 440. 



