CURIOUS INHABITANTS OF THE GULF STREAM 
183 
The Black-tip Shark {Carcharhinus 
limbatus) is a small species of ground 
shark, females of which are taken with 
young in the Bay of Florida in April. 
They are frequently hooked by tarpon 
fishermen, who erroneously call them 
“mackerel shark,” and put up a spirited 
fight. They are usually between five and 
five and a half feet in length, and the 
young, about three to six in number, 
are two feet long, or a little less, when 
born. 
We have data concerning another 
ground shark, Carcharhinus milberti^ the 
Brown Shark, which gives birth to its 
young in Great South Bay, New York, in 
midsummer. The mother sharks are a 
little larger—six or seven feet—the 
young, however, of about the same size, 
but more of them, eight to eleven having 
been recorded for this species. Some 
kinds of sharks which grow much larger 
have a proportionately larger number of 
young. 
While evolution has been molding other 
more modern fishes into a great variety 
of forms to fit every niche in the infi¬ 
nitely varied but unchanging environ¬ 
ment of tropical seas, the shark has al¬ 
ways been much as we find him today. 
A FISH THAT UTILIZES A SHARK AS A 
TAXI 
It is not surprising, therefore, that 
there is a fish which owes its very re¬ 
markable structure and habits to the 
presence of sharks. This is the slender 
Shark Sucker (Color Plate, page i8o), 
which has the anterior portion of its body 
horizontally flattened, and a remarkable 
oval structure, with movable slats like 
those of a blind, on the top of its head. 
With this apparatus it attaches itself 
firmly at will to the shark’s broad side 
and thus as a “dead-head” passenger, is 
transported through long stretches of 
ocean without any effort on its own part. 
The Shark Sucker is boldly and very 
beautifully striped with black and white, 
but can change its color almost instantly 
to a dull, uniform gray matching the side 
of the shark to which it is clinging. It 
sometimes attaches itself also to other 
large fishes, such as the Tarpon, or to 
turtles. 
A related species, the true Remora, is 
found clinging to those sharks which 
swim through the high seas far from 
shore. A third is found clinging about 
the gills of Spearfish or Marlin Swordfish, 
as they are called by California anglers. 
A fourth, with very large and strong 
sucking disk, has been found attached to 
whales. 
All of these may, loosely speaking, be 
called Remoras. They are sometimes 
erroneously spoken of as “Pilot-fish,” for 
the Pilot-fish is an entirely different 
small species related to the Amber Jack, 
which swims in front of or beside sea¬ 
going sharks and is vertically banded 
with black. 
Among the fishes of the world the 
Remoras occupy the position of a genus 
with unknown ancestry. There is noth¬ 
ing else like them, and to what manner 
of fishes they may be related is one of 
the mysteries of old ocean. 
Fish life of the shallow pools so often 
found along a rocky shore at low tide 
will repay careful study. Such a pool 
may be a few yards long, with a very 
irregular outline, full of nooks and cran¬ 
nies, and a few square feet of sand cov¬ 
ering its lowest point. 
Here the young of several types of 
fishes act out in miniature the drama 
which their elders are playing on the 
reef. Only the villains of the play, the 
larger predaceous fishes, are absent, at 
least for the present, until the returning 
flood inundates the isolated pool to make 
it once more a part of the big salt water, 
and we retreat up the beach. 
The stage setting is extremely simple: 
the jagged blackish bottom of the pool, 
small area of gray-white sand, a little 
patch of brownish seaweed in one place, 
either growing there or drifted in at the 
last high water. From a distance half a 
dozen small fishes are visible, swimming 
actively about. 
Nearer view shows them to consist of 
two or three Sergeant Majors, instantly 
recognized by the black and yellow 
uniform in vertical stripes; a couple of 
Beau Gregorys, with bright blue heads 
and yellow tails separated by a slanting 
line of demarcation, and a young Wrasse 
striped lengthwise with black on a pale 
ground. 
THE WRASSE CHANGES ITS COLOR 
INSTANTLY 
If one attempt to catch a fish of either 
of the former species, it displays great 
