BONY FISHES. ORDER II. THE SUCKING-FISH. 208 
Dr. Storer says the species is frequently scen in Massachusetts Bay, 
washed up on our beaches after a severe storm, “ Oceasionally, it is taken 
in fishing for cod, with the hook ; generally, however, it is found attached 
to sea-weed and other floating substances near the shore. Richardson tells 
us that ‘the Greenlanders eat its flesh, either cooked or dried, and its skin 
raw, throwing away only the tubercles ;’ and Dr. Neal observes ‘that it is 
purchased at Edinburgh for the table.’ With us, however, it is not used as 
an article of food. The common weight of this fish is from three to four 
pounds, and six to twelve pounds. The whole appearance of this fish is 
very forbidding, being, in young specimens, a soft, gelatinous, tremulous 
mass; in older specimens, it is much firmer; but in both, is covered entirely 
with firm, horny spines. My description is taken from a specimen seven- 
teen inches in length. 
“Length of the specimen, exclusive of the tail, fourteen inches; color 
of all the upper part of the body a bluish-slate ; beneath, yellowish. The 
whole surface of the fish is covered with an immense number of small stel- 
lated tubercles, studding even the rays of all the fins. Three rows of 
tubercles, much larger than those which are universally distributed over the 
fish, are observed projecting from either side.” 
Ecnrnets. — This genus has the body elongated, covered with very small 
seales ; a single dorsal fin placed opposite the anal; the head flat, covered 
with an oval disk, formed by numerous transverse, cartilaginous plates, the 
edges of which are directed backwards. 
FE. Naucrates. — The Indian Remora. This curious fish, which is about 
twenty inches in length, has a propensity for attaching itself, by the ad- 
hesive organ on the top of its head, to whatever object with which it comes 
in contact, and therefore has the rare distinction of being employed by man _ 
as a hunting-fish. When Columbus first discovered the West Indies, the 
inhabitants of the coasts of Cuba and Jamaica made use of the Remora to 
catch turtles, by attaching to its tail a strong cord of palm-fibres, which 
served to drag it out of the water along with its prey. By this means they 
were able to raise turtles weighing several hundred pounds from the bottom ; 
“for the sucking-fish,” says Columbus, “ will rather suffer itself to be cut 
to pieces than let go its hold.” In Africa, on the Mozambique coast, a sim- 
ilar method of catching turtles is practised to the present day. Thus a 
knowledge of the habits of animals, and similar necessities, have given rise 
to the same hunting artifices among nations that never had the least com- 
munication with each other. Everybody knows the fables that have been 
related of the small Mediterranean Remora (Mcheneis Remora). It even 
owes its Latin name to the marvellous story of its being able to arrest a ship 
under full sail in the midst of the ocean; and from this imaginary physical 
L . . 
