296 Mr. E. W. Grudger on the 



The soundness, the reasonableness of the conclusions 

 reached by the various writers in the immediately preceding 

 pages will appeal to every reader, but it must be remarked 

 that these are all conjectures, not facts observed and recorded 

 by scientific men. However, just here I am fortunate in 

 being able to give the following quotation from one of the 

 most eminent ichthyologists of the present day, Mr. David G. 

 Stead. In his < Fishes of Australia ' (1906), pages 190, 191, 

 we read : — 



"Now, though it would be altogether impossible and out 

 of all reason to suppose that one individual [Echeneis] 

 could exert sufficient power to delay or retard a vessel's 

 progress, still an instance has actually come under my 

 notice, in which a sailing-vessel was considerably delayed 

 while in tropical seas through a shoal of ' Suckers ' attaching 

 themselves all round its sides and bottom/' 



Unfortunately, I have had no experience of my own as to 

 the retarding powers of this fish, but in the summer of 1915 

 I carefully questioned (avoiding all leading queries) one of 

 the most experienced fishermen at Key West, Fla. We had 

 just caught a large shark, and were vainly attempting to hook 

 its sucking-fish attendant, when I related the story of the 

 ship-holder, cast some doubts on it, and asked Griffin what 

 he thought of it. He replied about as follows : — " They 

 sure will hold a boat. I have seen ten or twelve under a 

 boat at one time. This was while king-fish fishing at Bahia 

 Honda. The king-fish were in big schools and were followed 

 by hundreds of sharks. The 'suckers' on the boat came 

 from the sharks. My brother and me had boats just like 

 each other in size and build, but his was a little better sailer 

 than mine. The first day he beat me, both sailing before 

 the wind, but the stcond day I beat him. He said, 'No 

 wonder 1 am losing, too many '•'suckers" hanging on her 

 bottom/ All the Key West fishermen know that ' suckers' 

 will sure hold a boat." 



This was corroborated from his own experience by my 

 captain, an educated young Englishman from the Bahamas. 

 And both nun agreed that of two fishing-boats of equal size 

 and speed, the one having behind it a " trolling squid " for 

 mackerel will be retarded and will lose in a close race. 



In order that the reader may get a clear idea of the 

 "brake" which a good-sized sucking-fish may put on the 

 movements of its host, figure 7 (PI. XVI.) is introduced just 

 here. This is from a photograph of a model in the United 

 States National Museum of a shark with its adhering 

 Echeneis. The fish is about half the size of the shark — say, 



