there is, the remora can drop off without being hurt, as people generally are when they jump out of a carriage. It is difficult to imagine a more secure and delightful way of going about, and of all sea-fish, the remora, as it seems to me, must have the easiest and safest time. To all but him the fierce and greedy monsters of the deep—the sword-fish and saw-fish, the threshers, the sharks, and the killers—are a terror and a menace. But what can any of them do against a little sucking thing that sticks tight against them, in a place they cannot possibly get at. The remora, if it liked, could fix itself to the very sword or saw itself of these two redoubtable warriors. It would not, probably, because when either were in action, it would have to come off; but just behind one or the other—on the hilt or the handle—it could manage quite comfortably. It would then be just in front of their owners’ mouth, but yet quite unreachable, so that, supposing it to be a dainty, this would make a very good illustration of Tantalus. With the saw-fish, at any rate, such a situation would be quite possible, since there is a considerable space between the mouth and the beginning of the saw, and if there would not be room enough for it there with the sword-fish, the under part of the lower lip, or jaw, would do just as well. It is as the friend—or _attaché_—of the shark, however, that the remora is best known, and it is just in this position, or approaching to it, that he is said to fix himself—on the front or head part of the shark’s body, rather than behind, or on the tail. Now, of course, when the shark is eating anything—when he is tearing at a dead whale, for instance—fragments of the feast will float about in the water, and the nearer the remora is to the mouth of the shark, the nearer these are likely to come to it. This is the reason generally given for his choosing the position on the shark which he is said to do, or for his swimming at the shark’s mouth, when he chooses to swim with, rather than cling to him. However, as the remora is free to leave the shark whenever he chooses, and as the latter swallows his food whole, I cannot quite see what advantage he gains by being always in this advanced position. It is not as if he could not leave the shark, for then it might be a matter of life and death to him to be there. But as he must always know when the shark gets anything, and cannot well nibble the piece that goes down his patron’s throat, as far as I can see he might as well sit lower down, as at the head of the table.