PILOT. The English Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. 104) defines a pilot as being a person duly licensed by any pilotage authority to conduct ships to which he does not belong as one of the crew. Pilots are in fact taken on board to superintend the steering of the vessel, where the navigation is difficult and dangerous, in consequence of their special knowledge of particular waters; and it is to this class alone that the term now applies, whereas in early times the pilot was the steersman, or the individual who conducted the navigation of a ship across the ocean and out of sight of land. The word seems to be of Dutch origin, and to mean primarily a person who conducts a ship by the sounding line (peillood). Cowell (Law Diet.), describing lodemanage, speaks of it as the hire of a pilot for conducting a vessel from one place to another,—a lodesman (Ang. Sax. ldd-man, a leader) being a pilot for harbour and river duty. During the period of his charge the whole responsibility of the safe conduct of the vessel devolves upon the pilot. Most systems of maritime law have made the employment of pilots compulsory, though this does not usually apply to ships of war. One effect of neglect or refusal on the part of the master of a ship to take a pilot is to discharge the insurers from their liability. Excepting under extraordinary circumstances (such as where it is evident that he is acting rashly or is intoxicated, or is palpably incompetent) a master would not be justified in interfering with the pilot in his proper vocation. In England, societies or corporations have long been established for the appointment and control of pilots in particular localities; and of these the Trinity House, London, owing to the number of the pilots under its control, and the large ...

PILOT-FISH(Naucrates ductor), a pelagic fish of the family of Horse-Mackerels, well known to sailors from its peculiar habit of keeping company with ships and large fishes, especially sharks. It occurs in all tropical and sub-tropical seas, and is common in the Mediterranean, but becomes scarcer in higher latitudes. In summer pilots will follow ships as far north as the south coast of England into port, where they are generally speedily caught. This habit was known to the ancients, who describe the Pompilus as a fish which points out the way to dubious or embarrassed sailors, and by its sudden disappearance indicates to them the vicinity of land; the ancient seamen of the Mediterranean regarded it therefore as a sacred fish. That the pilot follows sharks is an observation of much later date, which first appears in works of travel of the 17th century, the writers asserting that the shark never seizes the pilot-fish, and that the latter is of great use to its big companion in conducting it and showing it the way to its food. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether the pilot’s connexion with a shark serves a more special purpose than its temporary attachment to a ship. It accompanies both on account of the supply of food which it derives from them, picking up the crustaceans, cirripeds, or other marine animals swarming about the ship’s bottom or parasitic on the shark, offal thrown overboard, or smaller pieces of flesh which are left unnoticed by the shark when it tears its prey. The pilot, therefore, stands to both in the relation of a so-called “commensal,” like the Echeneis or sucking-fish, whose habits are in some respects identical with those of the pilot, and which is frequently found associated with it. All observers, however, agree that neither the pilot ...