32 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



apprehended from its experiencing bad treatment." Mr. 

 Edmonston concludes by saying that " the usual resources 

 of scepticism that the seals and other sea-animals ap- 

 pearing under certain circumstances, operating upon an 

 excited imagination, and so producing ocular illusion, 

 cannot avail here. It is quite impossible that six Shetland 

 fishermen could commit such a mistake." It would seem 

 that the narrator demands that his readers shall be silenced, 

 if unconvinced ; but 



" He that complies against his will 

 Is of his own opinion still." 



This incident is well-attested, and merits respectful and 

 careful consideration ; but I decline to admit any such im- 

 possibility of error in observation or description on the part 

 of the fishermen, or the further impossibility of recognising 

 in the animal captured by them one known to naturalists. 

 The particulars given in this instance, and also of the 

 supposed merman seen cast ashore dead in 1719 by the 

 Rev. Peter Angel (p. 22), are sufficiently accurate descrip- 

 tions of a warm-blooded marine animal, with which the 

 Shetlanders, and probably Mr. Edmonston also, were un- 

 acquainted, namely, the rytina, of which I shall have more 

 to say presently ; and these occurrences afford some slight 

 hope that this remarkable beast may not have become 

 extinct in 1768, as has been supposed, but that it may still 

 exist somewhat further south than it was met with by its 

 original describer, Steller. 



Turning to Ireland, we find the same credence in the 

 semi-human fish, or fish-tailed human being. In the 

 autumn of 18 19 it was affirmed that "a creature appeared 

 on the Irish coast, about the size of a girl ten years of age, 



