362 PLINT's IfATUEAL HISTORY. [Book IX. 



the most bulky inhabitant, raising itself aloft like some vast 

 column, and as it towers above the sails of ships, belching forth, 

 as it were, a deluge of water. In the ocean of Gades there is 

 a tree,^" with outspread branches so vast, that it is supposed 

 that it is for that reason it has never yet entered the Straits. 

 There are fish also found there w^hich are called sea-wheels,"^ in 

 consequence of their singular conformation ; they are divided 

 by four spokes, the nave being guarded on every side by a 

 couple of eyes. 



CHAP. 4. (5.) THE FO:ilMS OF THE TEITONS AND NEEEIDS. THE 



FORMS OF SEA ELEPHANTS. 



A deputation of persons from Olisipo,^^ * that had been sent 

 for the purpose, brought word to the Emperor Tiberius that a 

 triton had been both seen and heard in a certain cavern, blowing 

 a conch-shell,^- and of the form under which they are usually 



tliat it was the porpoise ; but, as he justly remarks, the size of that animal 

 does not at all correspond with the magnitude of the " physeter," as here 

 mentioned. 



2*^ Cuvier suggests that the idea of such an animal as the one here 

 mentioned, probably took its rise in the kind of sea star-fish, now known 

 as Medusa's head, the Asterias of Linnaeus ; but that the enormous size here 

 attributed to it, has no foundation whatever in reality. He remarks also, 

 that the inhabitants of the north of Europe, have similar stories relative 

 to a huge polj^us, which they call the "kraken." We mav, however, be 

 allowed to observe, that the "kraken," or " korven," mentioned by good 

 bishop Pontoppidan, bears a closer resemblance to the so-called "sea- 

 serpent," than to anything of the polypus or sepia genus. 



-^ "Rotae." Cuvier suggests that this idea of the wheel was taken 

 from the class of zoophytes named " Medusae," by Linnaeus, which have the 

 form of a disc, divided by radii, and dots which may have been taken for 

 eyes. But then, as he says, there are none of them of an excessive size, 

 as Pliny would seem to indicate by placing them in this Chapter, and which 

 ^lian has absolutely attributed to them in B. xiii. c. 20. Of the largest 

 rhizostoma, Cuvier says, that he had even seen, the diameter of the disc 

 did not exceed two feet. 



21* Lisbon. See B. iv. c. 35. 



22 One of the Scholiasts on Homer says, that before the discovery of the 

 brazen trumpet by the Tyrrhenians, the conch-shell was in general use 

 for that purpose. Hardouin, with considerable credulity, remarks here, 

 that it is no fable, that the nereids and tritons had a human face ; and says 

 that no less than fifteen instances, ancient and modern, had been adduced, 

 in proof that such was the fact. He says that this was the belief of Scali- 

 ger, and quotes the book of Aldrovandus on Monsters, p. 36. But, as 

 Cuvier remarks, it is impossible to explain tliese stories of nereids and 

 tritons, on any other grounds than the fraudulent pretences of those who 



y 



