The wonderful power of adhesion, possessed by the remora, has been put to practical use by the Chinese, who actually employ it to catch turtles. A thin but very strong line is attached to a little iron ring, which is fitted round the base of the remora’s tail, which, as it becomes very narrow just there, and then swells broadly out to form the caudal fin, seems as if it were made for the purpose. Thus armed, the fishermen row or sail about till they see a turtle lying asleep on the water, and having come as close up to it as they dare, they drop several of these queer fishing-lines over the side of the boat—or sampan, as it is called. Should the remoras attach themselves to the sides or keel, they are dislodged with long bamboos, to which the lines serve as a guide, and then, swimming round about, before long they generally discover the turtle, to which they at once become fastened. If there were only one of them it might not be possible to draw in so large and heavy a creature as a turtle—at least, a large one—but with several it is not difficult to do so. The remoras are then detached, and can be used in this manner again and again, as well as to catch a fish or two, should it be so desired. Afterwards, when they have done their day’s work, they can be eaten themselves, for that is the way of the world, not of the Chinese only, as some people seem to think. The Chinese, it may be remembered, fish also with cormorants, round whose throats they weld a ring, to prevent their swallowing the fish. Two more novel and ingenious methods of following the gentle craft were surely never devised, but the more ingenious of the two, perhaps—that which I have just described—seems to have been practised by the Indians of America, when the Spaniards, in an evil hour, first landed on that continent. Columbus himself—or if not he, one of his companions—has described the method, and how, when the remora is thrown overboard, it shoots “like an arrow out of a Bowe towards the other fish, and then, gathering the bag on his head like a purse-net, holds it so fast that he lets not loose till hal’d up out of the water.”[14] The Indians, however, seem to have used but one remora at a time, as apparently they do now, and if it fixes itself to a turtle, instead of hauling it in, they dive down, following the line, and swim with it to the boat. [Illustration: THREE _VERSUS_ ONE A sword-fish and two killers attacked the mighty cachalot in vain. He first bit the sword-fish in two, then stretched one killer dead upon the sea with a blow from his tail, and the other fled for his life.]