ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 273 



the Cayo de Piedras I saw such embedded pieces of coral measuring 

 as much as three cubic feet. Several of the small West Indian coral 

 islands have fresh water, a phenomenon which, wherever it presents 

 itself (for example, at Radak in the Pacific; see Chamisso in Kot- 

 zebue's Entdeckungs-Reise, bd. iii. s. 108), is deserving of exami- 

 nation, as it has sometimes been ascribed to hydrostatic pressure 

 operating from a distant coast (as at Venice, and in the Bay of 

 Xagua east of Batabano), and sometimes to the filtration of rain 

 water. (See my Essai politique sur Tile de Cuba, t. ii. p. 137.) 



The living gelatinous investment of the stony calcareous part of 

 the coral attracts fish, and even turtles, who seek it as food. In the 

 time of Columbus, the now unfrequented locality of the Jardines del 

 Hey was enlivened by a singular kind of fishery, in which the inha- 

 bitants of the coasts of the Island of Cuba engaged, and in which 

 they availed themselves of the services of a small fish. They em- 

 ployed in the capture of turtle the Remora, once said to detain ships 

 (probably Echeneis Naucrates), called In Spanish "Reves," or re- 

 versed, because at first sight his back and abdomen are mistaken for 

 each other. The remora attaches itself to the turtle by suction 

 through the interstices of the indented and movable cartilaginous 

 plates which cover the head of the latter, and "would rather,-" says 

 Columbus, " allow itself to be cut in pieces than lose its hold/' 

 The natives, therefore, attach a line, formed of palm fibres', to the 

 tail of the little fish, and after it has fastened itself to the turtle 

 draw both out of the water together. Martin Anghiera, the learned 

 secretary of Charles V., says " Nostrates piscem reversum appellant, 

 quod versus venatur. Non aliter ac nos canibus gallicis per sequora 

 campi lepores insectamur, illi (incolse Cubaa insulse) venatorio pisce 

 pisces alios capiebant." (Petr. Martyr, Oceanica, 1532, dec. i. p. 

 9 ; Gomara, Hist, de las Indias, 1553, fol. xiv.) We learn by 

 Dampier and Commerson that this piscatorial artifice, the employing 

 a sucking-fish to catch other inhabitants of the water, is much prac- 

 ticed on the East Coast of Africa, at Cape Natal and on the Mozam- 

 bique Channel, and also in the Island of Madagascar. (Lacepede, 

 Hist. nat. des Poissons, t. i. p. 55.) The same necessities' combine 

 with a knowledge of the habits of animals to induce the same 



