No. 637] 



ONCE MORE THE SUCKING-FISH 



171 



The Latin version of Odoric has the old cormorant 

 story^"^ where the bird is called mergus, while in the Ital- 

 ian version it is called smergoP The usual Italian 

 names for the cormorant which Odoric must have known, 

 are also mergo, maragone,^^ so that the Latin mergus is 

 formed from the Italian mergo. Curiously, there are 

 two versions of Odoric in Ramusio. In the first the 

 whole cormorant fishing episode is omitted, while the 

 second has a totally different account. Here we read: 



Mine host . . took us to one side of the bridge where the river was 

 wider, and there we found many boats, and there was one of them em- 

 ployed in fishing by aid of a certain fish called marigione. The host 

 had another such, and this he took and kept it by a cord attached to 



own seas, where many call it the sea-calf. It had the muzzle and the 

 neck like a fox's, and the fore paws like a dog's, but the toes longer, 

 and the hind feet like a duck's, and the tail with the rest of the body 

 like a fish's. Mine host made him go in the water, and he began to 

 catch quantities of fish with his mouth, always depositing them in the 

 boat. And I swear that in less than two hours he had filled more than 



It is clear that the description of the sea-calf is an ex- 

 aggeration of that of the fish-otter, which is in Arabic 

 called ' ' fox of the water " or " dog of the water. ' ' Hence 

 there is most likely here an Arabic influence which 

 caused the substitution. And the reference to a fish 

 marigione, which was kept by a cord attached to a fine 

 collar, is similarly an attempt to bring the cormorant 

 story in keeping with the Arabic and Zanzibar account 

 of the fishing with the remora. We have here a transi- 

 tional stage from the cormorant story to the remora 

 story, as fathered by Columbus and permanently incor- 

 porated in all later accounts who drew upon the Colum- 

 bus story. 



ITT. Domenichelli, "Sopra la vita e i viaggi del beato Odorico Da Por- 

 denone," in Prato, 1881, p. 180 (cap. XLVI). 

 18 Ihid., p. 232. 



20 Ihidl, I. 189. ^ 



