452 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. LIIT 



SO incredible ? " In answer first let us consider the innate 

 probability of these accounts coming from such diverse 

 sources. It hardly seems probable that such an extra- 

 ordinary phenomenon, reported separately by Dampier, 

 by Commerson, by Salt, by Holmwood and by Wills for 

 one general locality, and by Columbus and his chroniclers 

 for a part of the world nearly 5,000 miles away, could be 

 other than an actuality. Indeed Humboldt, knowing only 

 of Commerson 's and the Spanish accounts, gave them 

 full credence (1826 and 1833). He quotes Captains 

 Rogers and Dam])i('r, nnd Columbus, and then comments 

 on the iiiaiiiici- ill which distant and alien peoples achieve 

 the saint' ends by dixcrsc means, the Americans having 

 a fisliennan-lish and the Chinese a fisherman-bird (the 

 cormorant), both serving the same purpose. He thinks 

 that the particular fish is not the small Remora but the 

 large Echeueis naucrates. 



P. H. Gosse (1851) in the volume on "Fishes" in his 

 "Xatural History," refers briefly to the old use of Re- 

 mora as a fisherman at "Hispaniola and Jamaica" and 

 c'onclndes as follows: 



