THE SUCKING FISH. 277 



Fabulous notions Power of adherence. 



crossways to this, sixteen ridges, with hollow 

 furrows between, by which structure it can fix 

 to any animal or other substance, as they are 

 often found adhering to the sides of ships, and 

 the bodies of sharks and other large fish. But 

 the notion that this small fish was able to stop a 

 ship under sail, or a whale in swimming, is 

 entirely fabulous ; all they can do is no more 

 than what shells, or corals, and other foulnesses, 

 which make her sail somewhat the slower. Abb6 

 Portis says, that once sailing in ihe gulf of 

 Venice in A small bark, the man at the hekn sud- 

 denly called to his companion to kill a remora, 

 vv.hich had fixed itself to the rudder, and which 

 did then, as he had often experienced, sensibly 

 both retard and alter the course of the vessel 

 Thus, what might have happened to a boat, is 

 by Oppian and Pliny transferred to a galley, or 

 ship. 



The sucking fish inhabits most parts of the 

 ocean, and is often found so strongly adhering to 

 the sides of sharks, as before observed, by means 

 of the structure of its head, as not to be got oft' 

 without great difficulty. " Five of them," says 

 Catesby, " have been .taken from the body of a 

 single shark. I have also seen them," adds he, 

 " disengaged, and swimming very deliberately 

 near the shark's mouth, without his attempting 

 to swallow them, the reason of which I am not 

 able to give." St. Pierre says, he has put some 

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