204 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
chooses to attach itself, the rare distinction of being employed 
by man as a hunting-fish. When Columbus first discovered the 
West Indies, the inhabitants of the coasts of Cuba and Jamaica 
made use of the remora to catch turtles, by attaching to its 
tail a strong cord of palm-fibres, which served to drag it out 
of the water along with its prey. By this means they were 
able to raise turtles weighing several hundred pounds from the 
bottom; “for the sucking-fish,” says Columbus, “ will rather 
suffer itself to be cut to pieces than let go its hold.” In Africa, 
on the Mozambique coast, a similar method of catching turtles 
is practised to the present day. Thus a knowledge of the habits 
of animals, and similar necessities, have given rise to the same 
hunting artifices among nations that never had the least com- 
munication with each other. Everybody knows the fables that 
have been related of the small Mediterranean remora (Hcheneis 
remora). It even 
owes its Latin name 
to the marvellous 
story of its being 
Sucking-fish, (Remora,) able to arrest a ship 
under full sail in 
the midst of the ocean; and from this imaginary physical power 
a no less astonishing moral influence was inferred, for the 
ancients believed that tasting the remora completely subdued 
the passion of love, and that if a delinquent, wishing to gain 
time, succeeded in making his judge eat some of its flesh, he 
was sure of a long delay before the verdict was pronounced. 
Most fishes have only a rapid flight to depend upon for 
their safety; some, however, more favoured by nature, have 
been provided with peculiar defensive weapons. Thus the 
dorsal fins of the Dragon-weever (Zrachinus draco), a small 
silvery fish, frequently occurring on our shores, are armed 
with strong spines, that effectually provide against its being 
easily swallowed by a more powerful 
enemy. The wounds it inflicts are 
very troublesome and painful, though 
it does not appear that the spines 
Bac ceeee: Weeves: contain any poisonous matter, as the 
- fishermen generally believe. At all 
events, the dragon-weever is not nearly so dangerous as the Clip 
