THE MERMAID. Tj 



for the creature continued to make a musical noise during 

 the tw.o minutes he gazed at it, and, on perceiving him, 

 disappeared in an instant. 



The universality of the belief in an animal of combined 

 human and fish-like form is very remarkable. That it 

 exists amongst the Japanese we have evidence in their 

 curious and ingeniously-constructed models which are 

 occasionally brought to this countr}^ I have one of 

 these which is so exactly the counterpart of that which 

 my friend ]\Ir. Frank Buckland described, originally in 

 Land and Water, and which forms the subject of a 

 chapter in his ' Curiosities of Natural Histor\-,' * that the 

 portrait of the one (Fig. 13) will equally well represent 



^?>»» 



FIG. 13. — A JAPANESE ARTIFICIAL MERMAID. 



the other. The lower half of the body is made of the skin 

 and scales of a fish of the carp family, and fastened on 

 to this, so neatly that it is hardly possible to detect where 

 the joint is made, is a wooden body, the ribs of which are so 

 prominent that the poor mermaid has a miserable and half- 

 star\^ed appearance. The upper part of the body is in the 

 attitude of a Sphinx, leaning upon its elbows and fore-arms. 

 The arms are thin and scraggy, and the fingers attenuated 

 and skeleton-like. The nails are formed of small pieces of 



Third Series, vol. ii. p. 134, 2nd ed. 



