5 UCKING-FISHES. 
37 1 
corselet on the anterior part of the body only, and the presence of only a single 
longitudinal ridge on each side of the tail. The tunnies have a geographical 
distribution coextensive with that of the family; and in a fossil state are found 
in the Eocene and Miocene deposits of the Continent. The common species, which 
attains a length of over 10 feet, and a weight of half a ton, is an occasional visitor 
to the British coasts, and is abundant in the Mediterranean, where it has been 
regularly fished for since very early times. At the present day specimens of a 
hundredweight each may often be seen in the Lisbon market; their flesh, which 
is as red as beef, being cut up and sold by weight. The bonito ( T . pelamys) is a 
smaller and more slender fish, rarely exceeding a yard in length, and frequenting 
all temperate and tropical seas; while the name of albicore is applied to species 
like T. albicora of the Atlantic, characterised by the great length of their pectoral 
fins, some of these fish attaining a length of 6 feet. Albicore and bonito will 
follow in the wake of sailing-ships for weeks together. They prey largely on 
flying-fish; and Bennett writes of one species that it was interesting “ to mark 
the precision with which it swam beneath the aeronaut, keeping him steadily in 
view, and preparing to seize him at the moment of his descent. But this the flying- 
fish would often elude by instantaneously renewing his leap, and not unfrequently 
escape by extreme agility.” Moseley writes that, when at St. Vincent, he saw a 
tunny of some 25 lbs. in weight attracted by baits thrown into the water by some 
negroes, who kept on casting in fresh ones for some time, in order to give their 
victim confidence. “ A very strong piece of cord, with a hook like a salmon-gaff 
made fast to it, was then baited with a small fish, just enough to cover the point 
of the hook, and a stout bamboo used as a rod. The cord was hitched tight round 
one end of it, with about a foot of it left dangling with the hook. One negro held 
the rod, and another the cord, the bait being held just touching the surface of the 
water. The fish swam up directly, and took it; the negro holding the bamboo 
struck sharply, and drove the big hook right through the fish’s upper jaw, and 
both men caught hold of the line and pulled the fish straight out on to the rock.” 
This instance indicates the remarkable boldness and voracity of the tunnies, the 
fish in question not being six feet distant from the negro holding the pole when 
it took the bait. Passing over several allied genera, such as Pelamys and Cybium, 
we proceed to a more interesting group of the family. 
The remarkable adhesive disc on the upper surface of the head 
Sucking Fishes. ^ Qnce gerveg distinguish the sucking-fishes, not only from their 
immediate relatives, but likewise from all other members of the class; and it may 
be mentioned that the development of this disc by means of what is called natural 
selection presents one of the strongest objections to the acceptance of that 
doctrine, since in its incipient stages such a structure would be utterly useless. 
The genus Echeneis, to which all the half-score species of sucking-fish pertain, 
differs from all those noticed above in the absence of finlets; the sucking-disc 
being formed by a modification of the spines of the dorsal, and being composed 
of a number of transverse plates, varying from twelve to twenty-seven, according 
to the species. It is not a little remarkable that there exists in the Indian Seas, 
as also in the Tropical Atlantic, a fish (Elacate nigra) closely allied to the sucking- 
fishes, but with the disc represented by a few short and separated spines; and it 
