274 Mr. E. IV. Gudger on the 



in the southern part Kied" The latter names are, of course, 

 variations of those noted ahove. Dr. Blake has not been 

 able to throw any light on the word Delka. 



From all this we see that, in the near East where changes 

 take place slowly, Epheneis was still called "louse" some 

 two thousand years after Aristotle. While to-day in our 

 own waters, as well as in most tropical seas, there is a certain 

 small Echeneid fish which Gill (1862) has named Phthier- 

 ichthys lineatus, the striped louse- fish. 



To return now to Prof. Thompson's " tiny fish whose 

 habitat is in the vicinity of rocks." It seems to me that 

 this fish cannot possibly be an Echeneis. The Echeneis is 

 not a " tiny " fish, since the adult forms generally range 

 in length from ten inches to three feet ; likewise, so far as 

 is known to naturalists, it does not dwell among rocks. In 

 fish literature of the medieval and renaissance times, how- 

 ever, we do frequently run across references to Echeneis as 

 a dweller among rocks, but I take these accounts to be 

 merely echoes of Aristotle, since they are in other respects 

 mere copies of preceding writers. Furthermore, this fish is 

 said to have feet or, at any rate, fins resembling such organs. 

 To the present writer there is no doubt that the fish here 

 referred to is a goby, for gobies are small fish, are found in 

 or near rocks, and have their forwardly-placed pelvic fins 

 transformed into hand-like or sucker-like prehensile organs*. 



The Myth of the Ship-holder. 



It will be remembered that Aristotle (384-322 b.c.) calls 

 our fish Echeneis, ship-holder, but that he nowhere refers 

 to the miraculous power alluded to by other but later writers. 

 So it is doubtful whether he knew of these alleged powers, 

 but if that be true why should he have named it ship-holder 1 ? 

 His words are " which some call the Echeneis or ' ship- 

 holder,' " and he is evidently quoting some previous writer, 

 or giving the name in common or everyday use. One thing- 

 is clear, i. e. he is not the originator of the term, nor is it 

 very evident that he knew the fish by personal observation. 



Before bringing to the attention of the reader the 

 various stories ascribing miraculous powers to our fishes, 



* Siuce writing the above I have found that Lowe, so long ago as 

 1843, expressed the belief that Aristotle's Echeneis was a blenny or a 

 goby or a Chironectes and that the dolphin's louse was an Echeneis. 

 On both of these points Giinther (1860, 1880) likewise is in agreement 

 with the author of the ' History of the Fishes of Madeira.' Day 

 (1830-84) also has briefly expressed his belief in this identification. 



