ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 71 



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 Eey was enlivened by a singular kind of 

 fishery, in which the inhabitants of the coasts of the Island 

 oP Cuba engaged, and in which they availed themselves of 

 the services of a small fish. They employed in the capture 

 of turtle the Eemora, once said to detain ships (probably 

 the Echeneis Naucrates), called in Spanish " Reves," or 

 reversed, 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 

 moveable 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, there- 

 fore, 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 Y., says, " Nostrates piscem- 

 reversum appellant/ quod versus venatur. Non aliter ac 

 nos canibus gallicis per sequora campi lepores insectamur, 

 illi (incolae Cubse insulse) venatorio pisce pisces alios capie- 

 bant." (Petr. Martyr, Oceanica, 1532, Dec. I. p. 9; Go- 

 mara, 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 practised on the East Coast of Africa, at 

 Cape Natal and on the Mozambique Channel, and also in 

 the Island of Madagascar. (Lacepede, Hist. nat. des Pois- 



