THE REMORA, OR SUCKING-FISH,
(Echeneis Remora,)
Resembles the herring; its head is thick, naked, depressed, and marked on the upper side with a curious sucker composed of numerous transverse, movable, serrated plates. The fins are seven in number; the under jaw is longer than the upper, and both furnished with teeth. This fish is provided by nature with a strong adhesive power, and, by means of the grooved space on its head, can attach itself to any animal or body whatever. We might suppose that a small fish with seven acting fins, armed like a galley with oars, would have a great power of motion in the water, but, for some reason unknown to us, Providence has contrived for him an easier way of travelling, by enabling him to fix himself to the hull of a ship, and even to the body of a larger animal than himself, as the whale, the shark, and others. Our forefathers believed that, small as he is, this fish had the power of arresting the progress of a ship in its fastest sailing by adhering to the bottom.
“The Sucking-fish beneath, with secret chains,
Clung to the keel, the swiftest ship detains.
The seamen run confused, no labour spared,
Let fly the sheets, and hoist the topmast yard.
The master bids them give her all the sails,
To court the winds and catch the coming gales.
But, though the canvas bellies with the blast,
And boisterous winds bend down the cracking mast,
The bark stands firmly rooted in the sea,
And will, unmoved, nor winds nor waves obey:
Still, as when calms have flatted all the plain,
And infant waves scarce wrinkle on the main.
No ship in harbour moor’d so careless rides,
When ruffling waters tell the flowing tides;
Appall’d, the sailors stare, through strange surprise,
Believe they dream, and rub their waking eyes.”