204 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



chooses to attach itself, 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 similar 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 {Echeneis 



remora). It even 

 owes its Latin name 

 to the marvellous 

 story of its being 



Sucking-fish. (Remora.) a bl e to arrest a ship 



under full sail in 

 the midst of the ocean ; and from this imaginary physical power 

 a no less astonishing moral influence was inferred, for the 

 ancients believed that tasting the remora completely subdued 

 the passion of love, and that if a delinquent, wishing to gain 

 time, succeeded in making his judge eat some of its flesh, he 

 was sure of a long delay before the verdict was pronounced. 



Most fishes have only a rapid flight to depend upon for 

 their safety; some, however, more favoured by nature, have 

 been provided with peculiar defensive weapons. Thus the 

 dorsal fins of the Dragon- weever (Trachinus draco), a small 

 silvery fish, frequently occurring on our shores, are armed 

 with strong spines, that effectually provide against its being 



easily swallowed by a more powerful 

 enemy. The wounds it inflicts are 

 very troublesome and painful, though 

 it does not appear that the spines 

 common Weever. contain any poisonous matter, as the 



fishermen generally believe. At all 

 events, the dragon-weever is not nearly so dangerous as the Clip 



