586 Dr. A. Giinther on the History o/Echeneis. 



XLII. — On the History of Echeneis. By Dr. Albert Gunther. 



[With a Plate.] 



There is scarcely a fish of the existence of which the ancients 

 have been equally certain, and which has so much occupied their 

 imap;ination — from a power thought to be inherent in the 

 creature to counteract the strongest physical agencies — as the 

 Echeneis of the Greeks or the Remora of the Latins. There is 

 scarcely a genus of fish which, from the time of its foundation 

 by Artedi, has been considered more natural, or more com- 

 ])letely left in its integrity, than Echeneis. And, finally, there 

 is scarcely a group of fishes which, although spoken of in 

 nearly every voyage or account of marine fishes, has been so 

 little compai'atively treated, and which has experienced a similar 

 splitting up into nominal species. 



I. History of the Fish from Aristotle to Artedi. 



We find the first mention of the name of the fish in Aristotle's 

 ' History of Animals *.' The shortness of the notice, however, 

 and the notice itself, afibrd ample proof that he did not 

 know the fish, and that he has applied the name of Echeneis to 

 a Bleunyt. He never could have omitted to give a description 

 of such a peculiar organ as the suctorial disk of Echeneis. He 

 describes the fish as inhabiting rocky parts of the sea, and as 

 having fins (pectorals and ventrals) somewhat similar to feet. 

 This does not apply to Echeneis, but clearly refers to Blennius, 

 a genus the species of which use their fins like feet for loco- 

 motion along the vertical and horizontal surfaces of the rocks 

 which they inhabit. Aristotle, however, and ^lian mention 

 another fish, called (f)6elp, the louse : — " In the sea between 

 Cyrene and Egypt there is a fish about the Dolphin [Delphinus], 

 which they call the Louse ; this becomes the fattest of all fishes, 

 because it partakes of the plentiful supply of food captured by 

 the Dolphin." (Aristot. Hist. E. kg. 3 ; iElian, ix. 7.) Schneider 

 and Lowe are perfectly right in suggesting that this fish is the 

 Echeneis of more modern writers. (Lowe, /. c. p. 78.) The com- 

 mentator on Aristotle, Theodore Gaza, adds to this original note 

 merely the etymological explanation of the name Echeneis as he 

 found it in other ancient writers, namely its derivation from 

 e%et)/ and vav<i. 



It is not quite clear whether the opinion that the Remora 



* Aristot. Hist. Anim. ii. c. 9. "Ecrrt 6' Ix&vbiov n rS>v ntrpaicov, o 

 Ka\ov(TL TLVfs exevTjtda, Koi -x^pavTai rives avra npos tiKas Koi (^'iKrpa' ecrrt 

 Se iijipwTOV. ToiiTo 6' evioi cf)aaip e'x^"' TroSas ovk e'x*"'* tiXXa (paiverai dia to 

 TUi nrepvyas ofioias ex^'-^ -rrocriv. 



t See Lowe, ' Fishes of Madeira,' p. 78. 



