CHAPTER XIV 



DAVEY J ones' goblins 



Not long ago a man named Grahame wrote of 

 a strange creature, "He was sticking half-way out 

 of the cave, and seemed to be enjoying of the cool 

 of the evening in a poetical sort of way. He was 

 as big as four cart-horses, and all covered with 

 shiny scales — deep blue scales at the top of him, 

 shading off to a tender sort o' green below. As 

 he breathed, there was that sort of flicker over his 

 nostrils that you see over our chalk roads on a 

 baking windless day in summer. He had his chin 

 on his paws, and I should say he was meditating 

 about things." 



Forty years ago another man named Collett 

 scooped up another equally strange creature from 

 the surface of the sea and wrote of it, "Head enor- 

 mous ; the body slender, compressed, mouth oblique. 

 Spinous dorsal reduced to a single cephalic ten- 

 tacle, the basal part of which is erect, not pro- 

 cumbent. Teeth in the jaws, on the vomer, and 

 the upper phryngeals. Gill opening exceedingly 

 narrow, situated a little below the root of the pec- 

 torals. Soft dorsal and anal very short; ventrals 

 none. Abdominal cavity forming a sac, suspended 



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