SCOMBERID^. 225 



highly suspicious, and, occasionally, wholly at variance 

 w ith any such notion. M. Geoflfroy is disposed to put a 

 charitable construction on the pilot's proceedings, and 

 i magiaes, for the solution of them, a species of squalo- 

 mania, inducing him to make the same tender of ser- 

 vices now to the shark as whilom to the whale, giving, 

 and vouching for the accuracy of, a story which he thinks 

 irrefragably establishes the point. The story, which may 

 be told in few words, is this : two pilots, on trustworthy 

 authority, were distinctly observed to lead a squalus up 

 to a bait hung out for his destruction, and, by their im- 

 portunity and pressing, finally induce him to seize it. 

 On which M. Cuvier shrewdly remarks, that such a re- 

 cital, so far from proving what Geoffi-oy intends to es- 

 tablish, in fact proves the very opposite, and, if true in 

 its details, would render the name of ' traitors,' and not 

 ' pUots,' the appropriate name for these fish. On the 

 other hand, we certainly meet with anecdotes which, 

 supposing them correct, appear to countenance the notion 

 that, at times at least, the N. ductor really protects his 

 grim and ferocious confederate. Captain Richards once 

 saw a blue shark following his ship ia the Mediterra- 

 nean, accompanied by several pilots. A tempting bait 

 was thrown out by the sailors, but the manoeuvres of 

 the crew to catch Glaucus were for some time rendered 

 completely abortive by the pertinacity with which these 

 little attendants alternately came forward and perse- 

 veringly poked their snouts in the way, so as effectually 

 to keep him off from the snare. After awhile, these 

 reiterated warnings seemed to be successful, the shark 

 swimming away with his faithful train, as by mutual 

 consent, in another direction; and soon all that could be 

 seen of the strange party, by the disappointed watchers 

 on the taffraH, was the long back-fin of their intended 

 victim, moving just above the rippling waves. Suddenly, 

 however, as changing his mind, the shark turned round, 



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