106 ACANTHOPTERYGII. 



Genus VI. — EcHENElS, Artedi. 



Heinoropsis, Mhomhooliirtis, Remilegia, Lepiecheneis, PhtheiricJitJiys, Gill. 



Branchiostegals seven or eight : pseudobranchice well developed. Body elongated 

 and fimiform . head depressed and superiorly provided with an adhesive organ. 

 Ei/es lateral, and directed ohliqnely downwards and outwards. Cleft of mouth deep. 

 Villiform teeth, occasionally ivith larger ones intermixed, on the jaws, vomer, palatine 

 hones, and generally on the tongue. The first dorsal fin modified on the summit of 

 the head and occiput into an adliesive dish : second dorsal and anal ivith many or a 

 moderate number of rays : no finlets : ventrals thoracic. Scales m,inute. No heel 

 on the sides of the tail. Air-bladder absent. Pyloric appendages in moderate 

 numbers. 



Tlie fishes of tWs genus at one time were considered malacopterygians, as no 

 spinous dorsal fin was observable : tbey now form tlie group Echeneidce oi Miiller, 

 the sub-family Echeneidina of Cantor, and tlie family Echeneoidei, Bleeker. Gill 

 has divided them into two groups composed of six genera. Liitken likewise 

 sub-divides them into t«o sub-genera. They are subject to great alterations with 

 age, in some the central rays in the caudal fin of the young form a long and 

 filiform prolongation, which disappears with adolescence, the tail often becoming 

 lunated. The number of laminas in the siicker is variable, as are also the fin rays 

 and the roughness or the reverse of the tongue. They are inhabitants of nearly 

 all the temperate and tropical seas, and are most usually captured adhering to 

 sharks. Van Benedcn has pointed out that, as they do not prey upon the fishes 

 to which they are indebted for house room and the means of locomotion from 

 one place to another, they cannot be termed "parasites;" so he named them 

 "commensals" or "raessmates," which may be either adherent to other animals or 

 else free swimmers. An example of a true parasitic fish exists in our seas in the 

 " myxine " or " hag," which burrows into and feeds upon the flesh of other 

 fishes. But the sucker of the Echeneis, by which it maintains its hold, is placed 

 on the upper surface of the head, and is evidently a modified first dorsal fin, as 

 was first observed by Voi^t. It is flat, of an oval shape, and composed of 

 transverse laminee directed backwards and having a tooth-like posterior margin 

 to each, supported by these are a modified dorsal spine which having divided 

 into two vertical halves becomes bent outwards to the right and left side, and 

 forms a support to the laminae ; while along its central line a smooth but 

 narrow elevation extends, so that a vacuum may when desirable be I'estricted to 

 one-half of the disk. The most anterior of these transverse laniinas are directed 

 slightly forwards, and the posterior slightly backwards. External to this disk, 

 and encircling its whole margin, is a wide fleshy nienrbrane. This apparatus acts 

 as a sucker similarly to the leather plaything employed when moist by schoolboys 

 for the purpose of being attached to a stone or other flat substance. As the 

 anatomical characters of this disk have been fully explained by several authors, 

 further remarks upon it appear to be unnecessary. 



When the accounts of the wonderful power of this sucking fish were first 

 credited it is impossible to say, but they certainly are found in Ovid and Pliuy. 

 The names Echeneis and liemora have been given this fish in consequence of its 

 possessing a sucker, and the uses to which it has been supposed to be put — the 

 first, by the Greeks, being a word composed of two others, signifying a fish which 

 retards or arrests the progress of a ship. The Latin term similarly implies delay, 

 and, though doubtless it was given for the identical reason for which the Greeks 

 employed their designation, it seems to have likewise had another meaning. 

 Meeting one of these fish while bathing during the progress of a love or law suit, 

 or any business that required despatch, was considered a bad omen. Buckland 

 observed that this fish figures as a symbol of prudence in an Oxford chapel 

 window. " Prudence " carrying "upon her right arm an arrow joined with a 

 rcmora, a fish that fixes itself to the bottom of ships and retards their progress." 



