THE SUCKING FISH. POISONOUS FISH. 233 
1x to twelve inches long, but has no value asa table fish. It is 
abundant near Nassau, and is sometimes called the Globe fish. 
The Sucking fish has a flattened disk on the upper part of its 
head, into which the first dorsal fin is transformed. This disk 
is composed of numerous transverse, cartilaginous, movable 
plates. By means of the suction or adhesive power of this disk, 
its owner fastens to a shark or other free and far-roving swimmer, 
‘*dead-heads” itself about the ocean without any labor or expense 
to itself, visits distant seas, and forages its supplies from the 
marine monsters that provide it, nolens volens, with a free, un- 
limited traveling ticket for life. This is the fisher fish to which 
we have heretofore referred. 
Catesby says it is a foot in length, and that its head is equal 
in size to its body; that ‘‘ the crown of its head is flat, and of an 
oval form, with a ridge of rising, running longitudinal and cross- 
ways to itssixteen ridges, with hollow intervals between, by which 
structure it can fasten itself to any animal or other substance;” 
that he has taken “five of them off the body of a shark, which 
were fixed so fast to different parts of its body, that it required 
great strength to separate them;” that he has ‘‘seen them dis- 
engaged and swimming very deliberately near the sharks without 
the latter attempting to swallow them.” 
Some of the Bahama fish are very poisonous. We were told 
by a Nassau gentleman that in some cases the question of the 
safety of eating certain fish depends upon the place where they 
are caught—the same kind of fish being in one place wholesome, 
and poisonous in another. Some are said to be safe for the table 
only when young. It is probable from these facts that the fish 
are poisoned by their food, but whether that food is of a min- ' 
eral nature, (which we are inclined to doubt,) or vegetable or 
animal, we are not informed. Very likely some localities pro- 
duce marine vegetable growths which are poisonous to the fish 
