264 PROBABLE ORIGIN OF STORIES OF MERMAIDS. Many of the so-called mermaids exhibited in a stuffed condition from time to time have proved sometimes clever, but more frequently bungling "shams." Among the latter may be classed the exhibition of the famous American, Barnum, a few years since, which proved to be the combination of the head of a monkey with the tail of a fish! The probability is that all the stories about these prodigies have originated in the appearance of seals, walruses, to which I have already alluded, and to what are called the herbivorous cetacea, from their living on sea-plants, and which consists amongst others of the manatee of the West Indies, the dugong of the Eastern seas, and the stellerus, an inhabitant of the Polar regions. I will briefly describe these animals. The best-known species of the Manatee, or Lamantin, or Sea-Cow, is found in the West Indies and on the western coasts of tropical America. These sometimes attain a length of twenty feet, and a weight of three or four tons, and they live chiefly in shallow bays and creeks, and in the estuaries of rivers. The skin is very thick and strong, and is almost destitute of hair. The fingers can be readily felt in the swimming paws, and, connected together as they are, possess considerable power of motion, whence the name manatee (from the Latin manus, "a hand"). This animal is usually found in herds, which combine for mutual protection when attacked, placing the young in the centre. When one is struck with a harpoon, the others try to tear it out. The females show great affection for their young. The Dugong-numbers of which frequent the coasts of Ceylon, allured by the still waters and the abundance of sea-weeds—is, perhaps, one of the most likely representatives of what is considered a "mermaid" that could be found. There is a rude approach to the human outline in the shape and attitude of the mother dugong while suckling her young, holding it to her breast by one flipper while swimming with the other, the heads of both being above water; and when suddenly disturbed, diving and displaying her fishlike tail. These, together with her habitual demonstrations of strong natural affection, might readily give rise to the fable of the mermaid. PORTUGUEse belief IN MERMAIDS. 265 Megasthenes records the existence of a creature in the ocean near Taprobane (Ceylon), with the aspect of a woman; and Ælian, adopting and enlarging on his information, peoples the seas of Ceylon with fishes having the heads of lions, panthers, and rams; and, stranger still, in the form of satyrs! Statements such as these must have had their origin in the hairs which are set round the mouth of the dugong, somewhat resembling a beard. The Portuguese cherished for a long time their belief in the mermaid; and the historian of the proceedings of the Jesuits in India gravely records that seven of these monsters, male and female, were captured at Ceylon in 1560, and carried to Goa, where they were dissected by the physician to the Viceroy, and "their internal structure found to be in all respects similar to the human !". A dugong, killed at Ceylon in 1847, measured upwards of seven feet in length, but specimens considerably larger have been taken. The female dugong, or sea-cow of Sumatra, will follow her young to the death, and is usually taken with them. The sea-calves have a short, sharp, pitiable cry, which they frequently repeat, and, like the stricken deer, are also said to shed tears, which, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, were carefully bottled by the common people, and preserved as charms to secure affection. Only one species of the Stellerus—of the same genus as the two I have mentioned-has been known, about twenty-five feet in length, a native of the Polar seas, and never observed since the middle of last century, so that it is supposed to be extinct. The characteristic features of this animal would lead one to suppose, also, that it may have contributed to the misconceptions about the mermaid. Mr. Rimbault, in "Notes and Queries," remarks that the exhibition of strange fishes appears to have been at its height in the reign of Elizabeth. Shakespere twice alludes to it: once in the "Winter's Tale" (Act IV., Scene 3), where Autolycus says: "Here's another ballad of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday, the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathoms above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish, for she would no exchange flesh with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitifu 266 CURIOUS NOTICES OF MONSTROUS FISHES. and as true;" and again in the "Tempest" (Act II., Scene 2). A printed notice, dated 1566, has for its title "The Description of a Rare or rather Most Monstrous Fishe, taken on the East Coast of Holland, the 17th November, Anno 1566," with a woodcut of the fish, and underneath the following lines: "The workes of God, how great and strange they be! A picture plaine, behold, heare you may see." Two years later there is another printed notice of "a moste true and marvellous straunge wonder, the lyke hathe seldom been seene, of xvii monstrous fishes, taken in Suffulke, at Downam Brydge, within a myle of Ipswiche, the xi daye of October, in the yeare of our Lorde God 1568." Stow, in his "Annales," gives a particular description of this "wondrous draught of fishes," some of them being "eight and twentie foote in length at least." Wolfe, in 1586, printed a broadside containing an account of a monster fish found in the stomach of a horse! The registers of the Stationers' Company contain an entry in 1604 of "a strange reporte of a monstrous fish that appeared in the form of a woman from the waist upwards, seene in the sea." Even in 1822, a so-called mermaid was publicly exhibited in London, which continued to be shown to the curious in these matters for many months, but the monster was found to have been constructed of the members of various animals, dexterously put together. Some amusing lines appeared at the period, which I will transcribe: "Come, mistress mermaid, tell us, for you 've seen In worlds the poets deck with imagery. Say, as you floated on the green sea's billow, Didst e'er see Neptune's car, or Amphitrite's pillow? Now, are there really coral caves below, Or beds of amber, or of precious stone, To which the blushing Nereids languid go In idle hours to recline upon? And are there fays to fan them while they're dreaming, Whose wings seem like two diamonds' purest gleaming? A "STUFFED" MERMAID. "Come, tell the truth, for none, dear mermaid,'s by, As you the secrets of the deep disclose. "Alas! you're dumb, and cannot even say, 66 As quick you speed from giant sea to sea, 'Farewell, dumb thing! perhaps the next we find 'T will speak, perchance, and haply prove most kind, And tell us all we've useless sought of you Rare information yielding on the morning She's clapped within the glass case you 're adorning." 267 CHAPTER XXIV. MODES OF FISHING IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES. "A thousand names a fisher might rehearse Of nets intractable in smoother verse." OPPIAN. HE use of nets for entrapping the finny inhabitants of the deep date from the earliest periods. Besides the frequent mention of them in the Holy Scriptures, we find illustrations in the bas-reliefs of Assyria, Greece, and Rome, and in the mural or wall paintings of Egypt. The latter nation delighted in fishing, and, not contented with the abundance afforded by the Nile, they constructed in their grounds spacious sluices or ponds for fish, like the vivaria of the Romans, where they fed them for the table, and amused themselves by angling. The fishermen, who composed one of the sub-divisions of the Egyptian castes, generally used the net in preference to the line. The ancients entertained a number of prejudices relative to the wholesomeness or injurious qualities of certain fish. The priests in Egypt were prohibited from eating fish of any kind. For fear of leprosy, the people also were forbidden the use of any fish not covered with scales. Moses adopted the same principles with the Jews: "Whatever hath fin or scales in the water in the seas, them shalt thou eat; whatever hath no fins or scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination to you." The Greeks and Romans used nets; trawling at sea was also a |