Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/137

Rh conclusive is recorded in Griffith's Cuvier, furnished by Colonel Hamilton Smith, and confirmed by his own observations. "Captain Richards, R.N., during his last station in the Mediterranean, saw on a fine day a Blue Shark, which followed the ship, attracted perhaps by a corpse which had been committed to the waves. After some time a shark-hook, baited with pork, was flung out. The Shark, attended by four Pilot-fish, repeatedly approached the bait; and every time that he did so, one of the Pilots preceding him was distinctly seen from the taffrail of the ship to run his snout against the side of the Shark's head to turn it away. After some farther play, the fish swam off in the wake of the vessel, his dorsal fin being long distinctly visible above the water. When he had gone, however, a considerable distance, he suddenly turned round, darted after the vessel, and before the Pilot-fish could overtake him and interpose, snapped at the bait and was taken. In hoisting him up, one of the Pilots was observed to cling to his side until he was half above water, when it fell off. All the Pilot-fishes then swam about a while, as if in search of their friend, with every apparent mark of anxiety and distress, and afterwards darted suddenly down into the depths of the sea. Colonel H. Smith has himself witnessed, with intense curiosity, an event in all respects precisely similar."

Not a few instances are on record of Pilot-fishes having accompanied vessels all the way from the Mediterranean, and even from its remotest parts, until they dropped anchor in a