The _Cayos Flamenco_, _Bonito_, _de Diego Perez_, and _de Piedras_, are coral islands, rising only from 8 to 15 inches above the level of the sea. The upper edge of the reef does not consist merely of dead polyp-trunks, but is rather formed of a true conglomerate, in which angular pieces of coral, lying in various directions, are embedded in a cement composed of granules of quartz. In Cayo de Piedras I saw such embedded masses of coral, some of them measuring upwards of three cubic feet. Several of the West Indian smaller coral islands have fresh water, a phenomenon which merits a careful investigation wherever it occurs (as for instance near Radak in the South Sea),[KZ] since it has sometimes been ascribed to hydrostatic pressure, acting from a distant coast (as in Venice, and in the Bay of Xagua, east of Batabano), and sometimes to the filtration of rain-water.[LA] The living gelatinous covering of the calcareous fabric of the coral-trunks attracts fishes and even turtles in search of food. In the time of Columbus the now desolate district of the Jardines del Rey was animated by a singular branch of industry pursued by the inhabitants of the sea-coasts of Cuba, who availed themselves of a little fish, the Remora, or sucking-fish (the so-called Ship-holder), probably the Echeneis naucrates, for catching turtles. A long and strong line, made of the fibres of the palm, was attached to the tail of the fish. The Remora (called in Spanish _Reves_, or reversed, because at first sight the back and abdomen might easily be mistaken for each other), attaches itself by suction to the turtle through the indented and moveable cartilaginous plates of the upper shell that covers the head. The Remora, says Columbus, would rather let itself be torn to pieces than relinquish its prey, and the little fish and the turtle are thus drawn out of the water together. “Nostrates,” says Martin Anghiera, the learned secretary of Charles V, “piscem Reversum appellant, quod versus venatur. Non aliter ac nos canibus gallicis per æquora campi lepores insectamur, illi (incolæ Cubæ insulæ) venatorio pisce pisces alios capiebant.”[LB] We learn from Dampier and Commerson, that this artifice of employing a sucking-fish to catch other fishes is very common on the eastern coasts of Africa, near Cape Natal and Mozambique, as well as on the island of Madagascar.[LC] An acquaintance with the habits of animals, and the same necessities, lead to similar artifices and modes of capture amongst tribes having no connection with one another.