asionally seen of a pure white colour associating
with the black ones, and also attending upon the shark. They are
supposed to be merely varieties or _albinos_.

When sharks are hooked and drawn on board a ship, the sucking-fishes
that have been swimming around them will remain for days, and even
weeks, following the vessel throughout all her courses. They can then
be taken by a hook and line, baited with a piece of flesh; and they will
seize the bait when let down in the stillest water. In order to secure
them, however, it is necessary, after they have been hooked, to jerk
them quickly out of the water; else they will swim rapidly to the side
of the ship, and fix their sucker so firmly against the wood, as to defy
every attempt to dislodge them.

There are two well-known species of sucking-fish,--the common one
described, and another of larger size, found in the Pacific, the
_Echeneis australis_. The latter is a better shaped fish than its
congener, can swim more rapidly, and is altogether of a more active
habit.

Perhaps the most interesting fact in the history of the _Echeneis_ is
its being the same fish as that known to the Spanish navigators as the
_remora_, and which was found by Columbus in possession of the natives
of Cuba and Jamaica, _tamed, and trained to the catching of turtles_!

Their mode of using it was by attaching a cord of palm sennit to a ring
already fastened round the tail, at the smallest part between the
ventral and caudal fins. It was then allowed to swim out into the sea;
while the other end of the cord was tied to a tree, or made fast to a
rock upon the beach. The _remora_ being thus set--just as one would set
a baited hook--was left free to follow its own inclinations,--which
usually were to fasten its sucking-plates against the shell of one of
the great sea-turtles,--so famed at aldermanic feasts and prized by
modern _gourmets_, and equally relished by the ancient Cuban _caciques_.

At intervals, the turtle-catcher would look to his line; and when the
extra strain upon it proved that the _remora_ was _en rapport_ with a
turtle, he would haul in, until the huge _chelonian_ was brought within
striking distance of his heavy club; and thus would the capture be
effected.

Turtles of many hundreds' weight could be taken in this way; for the
pull upon the _remora_ being towards the tail,--and therefore in a
backward direction,--the sucking-fish could not be detached, unless by
the most