Identifier: zoologicallectur21809shaw (find matches)
Title: Zoological lectures delivered at the Royal Institution in the years 1806 and 1807
Year: 1809 (1800s)
Authors: Shaw, George, 1751-1813 Mearns, Edgar Alexander, 1856-1916, former owner. DSI Royal Institution of Great Britain
Subjects: Zoology
Publisher: London : Printed for George Kearsley, by Thomas Davison
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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exhibited on viewing similar changes in theexpiring Mullet, when brought to their tables,before the feast began. Among the smallest Fishes of this genus is theC. Novacula or Razor Coryphene, so named onaccount of its extreme thinness of body: it is of areddish-yellow colour, varied in some parts withblue lines and spots. The genus Echeneis or Remora is a highly sin-gular one, and is readily distinguished by the veryremarkable structure of the head, which is flat-tened on the top into the form of an oval space,divided down the middle, and crossed by very nu-merous partitions, beset on the edges with smallfibres. By this part the Fishes of this genusare enabled to adhere with the utmost tenacityto any moderately flat surface, and thus frequent-ly affix themselves either to the sides of ships,or to Sharks and many other of the largerFishes. ;^ The ancients imagined that these Fishes pos-sessed the power of stopping a vessel in full sailby thus adhering to it, and rendering it immove- io3
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LECTURE VIIL 63 able in the midst of the sea. The adhesion how-ever of a number of these Fishes at once to theside of a small canoe, in the earlier ages of man-kind, may really be supposed to have considerablyretarded its progress, and have even caused it toincline on one side; and the tale once related,might have gradually grown into the exaggeratedpowers afterwards ascribed to the animal. Thereal fact is, that the Remora being a Fish of veryweak powers of fin, takes the advantage of occa-sionally attaching itself to any large swimmingbody, whether animate or inanimate, which ithappens to meet with; for when left to its ownexertions it swims weakly, unsteadily, and often©n its back. It is therefore necessary that itshould avail itself of the occasional assistance ofsome larger floating body, and for this purposethe wonderful structure of the head is formed..The common Remora or E. Remora of Linnasusis a native of the Mediterranean sea, and is of abrown colour, with about eighteen ba

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