eeping
company with the ferocious tyrant of the deep, on whom it constantly
attends.

Its body is black and smooth, its head of a hideous form, and its fins
short and broadly spread. The mouth is very large, with the lower jaw
protruding far beyond the upper, and it is this that gives to it the
cast of feature, if we may be permitted to speak of "features" in a
fish.

Both lips and jaws are amply provided with teeth; and the throat,
palate, and tongue are set profusely with short spines. The eyes are
dark, and set high up. The "sucker" or buckler upon the top of its head
consists of a number of bony plates, set side by side, so as to form an
oval disc, and armed along the edges with little tentacles, or teeth, as
the boy William had observed.

His companion's account of the creature was perfectly correct, so far as
it went; but there are many other points in its "history" quite as
curious as those which the sailor had communicated.

The fish has neither swim-bladder nor sound; and as, moreover, its fins
are of the feeblest kind, it is probably on this account that it has
been gifted with the power of adhering to other floating bodies, by way
of compensation for the above-named deficiencies. The slow and prowling
movements of the white shark, render it particularly eligible for the
purposes of the sucking-fish, either as a resting-place or a means of
conveyance from place to place; and it is well-known that the shark is
usually attended by several of these singular satellites. Other
floating objects, however, are used by the sucking-fish,--such as pieces
of timber, the keel of a ship; and it even rests itself against the
sides of submerged rocks, as the sailor had stated. It also adheres to
whales, turtles, and the larger kinds of albacore.

Its food consists of shrimps, marine insects, fragments of molluscous
animals, and the like; but it obtains no nutriment through the
sucking-apparatus, nor does it in any way injure the animal to which it
adheres. It only makes use of the sucker at intervals; at other times,
swimming around the object it attends, and looking out for prey of its
own choice, and on its own account. While swimming it propels itself by
rapid lateral movements of the tail, executed awkwardly and with a
tortuous motion.

It is itself preyed upon by other fish,--diodons and albacores; but the
shark is merciful to it, as to the pilot-fish, and never interferes with
it.

Sucking-fish are occ