PRIMITIVE FISH-BELIEFS. 7 



fool astride a lobster ; and the significance of that medal 

 of the Pretender, in which the youthful aspirant is shown 

 in the arms of a Jesuit who rides a lobster, conveys nothing 

 to the credit * either of the friar or the fish. Mercury in 

 his ignobler aspect rides a cray-fish. The porpoise is 

 popular in the same homely way that the pig is ; but the 

 eel has the worst of characters. 



It was a common myth once that the sea held a dupli- 

 cate of every animal on the earth, and antiquity therefore 

 was familiar with many marine equivalents for their land- 

 beasts, even though they could find no better resem- 

 blances for the corresponding terrestrial beasts than a 

 lobster for the " lion," a crab for the " bear," a skate for the 

 " ox," a dog-fish for the " dog," and an eel for the " wolf." 

 The names were probably given at first simply to indi- 

 cate a single point of fancied resemblance, but eventually 

 some imaginative theorist, seeing so many correspondences 

 recognised, hit upon the idea of extending the identities 

 throughout creation. The attempt, however, was a com- 

 plete failure, and the further enquiry is made, the wider 

 become the differences between the inhabitants of the 

 water and the earth. Sailors and fishermen still retain 

 many of the old names, and popular usage has familiarised 

 us more or less with the sea-horse — the quaint little 

 creature, more like a knight on a chess-board than a horse 

 — sea-lion, sea-bear, sea-cat, sea-eagle, sea-bat, sea-hedge- 

 hog, sea-leopard, sea-mouse, sea-scorpion, sea-snipe, sea- 



* " The imputation upon the legitimacy of the Pretender, conveyed 

 in the above, was occasioned in a great degree and almost justified by 

 the pilgrimages and superstitious foolishness of his grandmother, 

 increased by his mother's choosing St. Francis Xavier as one of her 

 ecclesiastical patrons, and with her family attributing the birth of the 

 Prince to his miraculous interference." — Notes and Queries. 



