In the days of hoary antiquity it was believed that this strange fish was wont to affix itself to the bottom of a ship, and was able of its malice to hold it stationary in a stiff breeze though all sails were set.  According to the legend (a popular method by means of which the descendants of great men explained away their faults and blunders), at the famous sea-fight at Actium, Mark Antony’s ship was held back by a remora in spite of the efforts of hundreds of willing galley-slaves.  Shakespeare may say that Cleopatra’s “fearful sails” were the cause of Antony’s fatal indecision and flight, and a lesser poet may cast the blame upon her “timid tear”; but the tribute to the remora’s interference with the fate of nations was accepted in good faith at the time, and was, moreover, supported and confirmed by the inglorious experience of other great men who hung back when they should have sailed boldly on to victory or noble disaster.

Vulgarly known nowadays as “the sucker,” and to science as the “ECHENEIS remora” and “ECHENEIS NAUCRATES,” and to the blacks as “Cum-mai,” the fish upon which such grave responsibility was thrown by the ancients monopolises the sub-order of ACANTHOPTAYGII (DISCOCEPHALI).  Its distinguishing feature is a shield or disc extending from the tip of the upper jaw to a point behind the shoulders, and said to be a modification of the spurious dorsal fin.  This structure consists of a midrib and a number of transverse flat ridges capable of being raised or depressed.  The disc has a membranous continuous edge or margin.  When the fish presses the soft edge of the disc against any smooth surface and depresses the ridges and the intervening spaces, a vacuum is formed, giving it enormous holding power.  Other countries have sucker fish of different form; but it remained for the benighted Australian blacks, among a few other savage races, to make practical use of the creature, which, as a means of locomotion, forms strong attachments to the dugong, turtle, shark and porpoise.  It can hardly be called domesticated, yet it is employed after the manner of the falcon in hawking, save that the sucker is fastened to a light line when the game is revealed.

Some assert that the sucker swims on its back when not adhering to its host, but my observation denounces that theory.  Becalmed among the islands, where the water is transparently clear, I have seen the sucker swim cautiously to the boat, apparently reconnoitring.  Shy and easily startled, a wave of the hand over the gunwale is sufficient to scare it away; but it comes again, keeping pace as the boat drifts, and liking to remain in its shadow.  Then it is easily seen that it swims with the sucker uppermost.

Occasionally when the blacks harpoon a turtle or a dugong a sucker is secured.  They declare that it stays in one locality until a suitable host happens along, and then forms a life-long attachment.