The Myth of the Ship-holder. 2 7 L 



XXIX. — The Myth of the Ship- holder * : Studies in Echeneis 

 or Remora. — I. By E. W. Gudger, State Normal College, 

 Greensboro, X.C., U.S.A. 



[Plates XV.-XVII.] 



Contents. 



Introduction. 



The Myth of the Ship-holder. 



The Myth explained. 



First Explanation : Foul Bottoms. 



Second Explanation : The Adherinj^ Remora acts as a Rudder. 



Third Explnnation : Large Numbers of Adhering Keiuoras. 



Fourth Explanation: " Dead- Water." 

 Bibliography. 

 Explanation of the Plates. 



TXTRODUCTION. 



Ever since the time of Aristotle, the ship-holder or 

 sucking-fish, because of its peculiar structure and habits, 

 has greatly interested men both scientific and unscientific. 

 Possessed of a suctorial disk on the head and the shoulder 

 region, it is able to attach itself to whales, porpoises, turtles, 

 rays, and sharks, or to large fishes of any kind, and thus 

 secure transportation and opportunity to obtain food without 

 exertion. It likewise attaches itself to boats, ships, floating 

 wrecks, or even logs in the same way and for the same 

 purpose. From this it is an easy transition to the belief of 

 the ancients that attaching itself thus to a vessel it might 

 retard or even hold it back. Hence the name Echeneis, one 

 that holds back a ship, and Remora, a holding back. 



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

 ancients have been equally certain, and which has so much 

 occupied their imagination — 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.^' t 



* In gathering the material for this paper,! am under much obligation 

 to Dr. C. li. Eastman of the American Museum of Natural History, New 

 York City, and to Dr. II. M. Lydenberg, Reference Librarian of the New 

 York Public Library. In his work for the American Museum on the 

 great bibliography of fishes, Dr. Eastman ran across and kindly trans- 

 mitted to me a large number of the references made use of in this paper. 

 Dr. Lydenberg has, as heretofore, been a court of last resort for obscure 

 and seemingly unintelligible references, every one of which he has, b}'^ 

 reason of his large knowledge of matters bibliographical, been able to 

 clear up. My best thanks are hereby rendered to him and to Dr. Ea.st- 

 man for their many kindnesses. 



t Giinther, * On the History of Echeneis,' 1860. 



