the officer who superintends the navigation, either upon the sea coast or on the main ocean. It is, however, more particularly applied by our mariners to the person charged with the direction of a ship's course on or near the sea-coast, and into the roads, bays, rivers, havens, &c. within his respective district.

Pilots of ships, taking upon them to conduct any ship from Dover, &c. to any place up the river Thames, are to be first examined and approved by the master and wardens of the society of Trinity House, &c. or shall forfeit 10l. for the first offence, 20l. for the second, and 40l. for every other offence; one moiety to the informer, the other to the master and wardens; but any master or mate of a ship may pilot his own vessel up the river; and if any ship be lost through the negligence of any pilot, he shall be for ever after disallowed to act as a pilot. 3 Geo. I. c. 13. Also the lord-warden of the cinque ports may make rules for the government of pilots, and order a sufficient number to ply at sea to conduct ships up to the Thames: 7 Geo. I. c. 21. No person shall act as a pilot on the Thames, &c. (except in collier ships) without a licence from the master and wardens of Trinity House at Deptford, on pain of forfeiting 20l. And pilots are to be subject to the government of that corporation; and pay ancient dues, not exceeding 1s. in the pound, out of wages, for the use of the poor thereof. Stat. 5 Geo. II. c. 20.

By the former laws of France, no person could be received as pilot till he had made several voyages and passed a strict examination; and after that, on his return in long voyages, he was obliged to lodge a copy of his journal in the admiralty; and if a pilot occasioned the loss of a ship, he had to pay 100 livres fine, and to be for ever deprived of the exercise of pilotage; and if he did it designingly, be punished with death. Lex Mercat. 70. 71.

The laws of Oleron ordain, That if any pilot designedly misguide a ship, that it may be cast away, he shall be put to a rigorous death, and hung in chains; and if the lord of a place, where a ship be thus lost, abet such villains in order to have a share of the wreck, he shall be apprehended, and all his goods forfeited for the satisfaction of the persons suffering; and his person shall be fastened to a stake in the midst of his own mansion, which, being fired on the four corners, shall be burned to the ground, and he with it. Leg. Oh. c. 25. And if the fault of a pilot be so notorious, that the ship's crew see an apparent wreck, they may lead him to the hatchets, and strike off his head; but the common law denies this hasty execution: an ignorant pilot pilot is sentenced to pass thrice under the ship's keel by the laws of Denmark. Lex Mercat. 70.

The regulations with regard to pilots in the royal navy are as follow: "The commanders of the king's ships, in order to give all reasonable encouragement to useful body of men as pilots, and to remove all their objections to his Majesty's service, are strictly charged to treat them with good usage, and an equal respect with warrant-officers.

"The purser of the ship is always to have a set of bedding provided on board for the pilots; and the captain is to order the boatswain to supply them with hammocks, and a convenient place to lie in, near their duty, and apart from the common men; which bedding and hammocks are to be returned when the pilots leave the ship.

"A pilot, when conducting one of his Majesty's ships in pilot water, shall have the sole charge and command of the ship, and may give orders for steering, setting, trimming, or furling the sails; tacking the ship; or whatever concerns the navigation: and the captain is to take care that all the officers and crew obey his orders. But the captain is diligently to observe the conduct of the pilot; and if he judges him to behave so ill as to bring the ship into danger, he may remove him from the command and charge of the ship, and take such methods for her preservation as shall be judged necessary; remarking upon the log book, the exact hour and time when the pilot was removed from his office, and the reasons assigned for it.

"Captains of the king's ships, employing pilots in foreign parts of his majesty's dominions, shall, after performance of the service, give a certificate thereof to the pilot, which being produced to the proper naval officer, he shall cause the same to be immediately paid; but if there be no naval-officer there, the captain of his majesty's ship shall pay him, and send the proper vouchers, with his bill, to the navy-board, in order to be paid as bills of exchange.

"Captains of his Majesty's ships, employing foreign pilots to carry the ships they command into or out of foreign ports, shall pay them the rates due by the establishment or custom of the country, before they discharge them; whose receipts being duly vouched, and sent, with a certificate of the service performed, to the navy-board, they shall cause them to be paid with the same exactness as they do bills of exchange." Regulations and Instructions of the Sea-service, &c.

Pilot-Fish, or Gasteroleus Duator, in ichthyology, is a species of the gasteroleus, and is found in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic ocean, chiefly towards the equator. Catesby, who gives a figure of it in its natural size, together with a short description, calls it perca marina feteria, or rudder-fish. One of them, which Gronovius describes, was about four inches in length, and its greatest breadth little more than an inch: the head is about a third of the body, and covered, excepting the space between the snout and the eye, with scales scarcely perceptible, and covering one another like tiles; the iris of the eye is a silver grey; the jaws are of equal size, and furnished as well as the palate with small teeth disposed in groups; there is also a longitudinal row of teeth on the tongue. The trunk of the pilot-fish is oblong, a little rounded, but it appears quadrangular towards the tail, because at this place the lines are thicker, and form a kind of membranaceous projection. The back fin is long, and furnished with seven radii; on the fore-part of this fin are three moveable prickles very short; the fins on the breast have each of them 20 radii, forked at their extremity; the abdominal fins have six; that of the anus has 17 branches, of which the first is longest; this fin is preceded by a small moveable prickle; that of the tail is thick, large, and forked. The pilot-fish is of a brownish colour, changing into gold; a transversal black belt crosses the head; a second passes over the body at the place of the breast; a third near the moveable prickles of the back; three others near the region of the anus; and a seventh at the tail.

Seafaring people observe, that this fish frequently accompanies their vessels; and as they see it generally towards the fore part of the ship, they imagined that it was guiding and tracing out the course of the vessel, and hence it received the name of pilot-fish.

Obse tells us, that they are shaped like those mackerels which have a transversal line across the body. "Sailors (continues he) give them the name of pilots, because they closely follow the dog-fish, swimming in great shoals round it on all sides. It is thought that they point out some prey to the dog-fish; and indeed that fish is very unwieldy. They are not only not touched, but also preserved by it against all their enemies. Psalm cvi. ver. 2. 'Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? Who can show forth all his praise?' This scarce and remarkable fish I had an opportunity of describing: it is Scomber caruilo-albus cingulis transversis nigris sex, dorso monopterygio. See the Memoirs of the Swedish Academy of Sciences for the year 1755, vol. xvi. p. 71. of the Swedish edition."

It likewise follows the shark, apparently for the purpose of devouring the remains of its prey. It is pretended that it acts as its pilot. The manner in which it attends the shark, according to M. Dauben- ton, may have given rise to this name. It is said to swim at the height of a foot and a half from the snout of this voracious animal, to follow and imitate all its movements, and to seize with address every part of its prey which the shark allows to escape, and which is light enough to buoy up towards the surface of the water. When the shark, which has its mouth below, turns to seize any fish, the pilot-fish starts away; but as soon as the shark recovers his ordinary situation, it returns to its former place. Barbut informs us, that these fishes propagate their species like the shark. He adds, that in the gulph of Guinen those fishes follow ships for the sake of the offals and human excrements; and hence the Dutch give them the name of dung-fish. It is remarkable, that though so small they can keep pace with ships in their swiftest course.