428 A HISTORY OF FISHES 



during the Middle Ages mention may be made of the "Monk- 

 fish" and "Bishop-fish," both of which are illustrated in 

 Rondelet's Histoire Entiere des Poissons, published in 1558. 

 Rondelct remarks that his picture of the "Monk-fish" was given 

 to him by the very illustrious lady, Margaret de Valois, Queen 

 of Navarre, who received it from a gentleman, who gave a 

 similar one to the Emperor Charles V, then in Spain. This 

 gentleman aflfirmed that he had actually seen the monster 

 portrayed cast on to the shore in Norway during a violent 

 storm ! 



The mermaid, half-maiden, half-fish, represents a particularly 

 tenacious myth, which still persists among ignorant people at 

 the present day. In certain cases Dugongs and Sea Lions, with 

 their somewhat human heads and fish-like bodies, have been 

 mistaken for mermaids, but the persistence of the belief is due 

 largely to the dried specimens brought home by travellers in 

 the Orient. On close examination these are found to consist 

 of the head and shoulders of a monkey cleverly united by wires 

 to the tail-end of a fish (often the Nile Perch). These are 

 manufactured in some numbers by the Egyptians and Chinese, 

 who sell them at a handsome profit to credulous tourists, 

 together with documents purporting to be signed by witnesses 

 of the capture of these creatures in the sea. It is said that the 

 great Linnaeus was once forced to leave a town in Holland for 

 questioning the genuineness of one of these mermaids, the 

 property of some high oflBcial. 



Another persistent myth, but one which may any day be trans- 

 ferred from the realm of legend to that of actual scientific fact, 

 is that of the great Sea Serpent. There are, of course, the 

 poisonous Sea Snakes of tropical seas, some of which grow to 

 a length of ten or twelve feet, but these, although certainly 

 "serpents," are not the Sea Serpents of legends. The great 

 Sea Serpent, descriptions of which have appeared in almost 

 every language of civilised peoples, has unfortunately not yet 

 come under the observation of scientific men, and it is to be 

 feared that very nearly all the records of its occurrence are to 

 be put down to seamen's yarns, perhaps aided by strange tricks 

 of memory, the power of suggestion, the effects of over- 

 indulgence in alcohol, or to cases of mistaken identity. The 

 Sea Serpents of Aristotle, Pliny, and other classical authors seem 

 to have been nothing more than gigantic eels. The monster 

 described as having the head of a horse with a flaming red 

 mane is the Oar-fish or Ribbon-fish {cf. p. 65), a species which 



