292 HERBIVOROUS CETACEA. 



have been supplied for general information. We 

 have no doubt that though there was much truth in 

 the narratives, there was also much error ; and we 

 must now, so far as we can, supply our readers with 

 such information as will enable them to correct 

 these errors, and to read aright all such histories. 



It is here, however, only right to add, that these 

 marvellous stories of Mermaids are not to be asso- 

 ciated only with the herbivorous cete now to be in- 

 troduced to notice. Large allowance must be made 

 for the workings of an excited imagination, in situa- 

 <inns of solitude and apprehension, on the unex- 

 pected appearance of an extraordinary and unknown 

 object. In many instances, even the animals whose 

 histories we have been reviewing, viz. the Walrus 

 and the Seals, have unquestionably been the origi- 

 nals which supplied, to wide and credulous circles, 

 the subject-matter of their astonishment and wonder. 

 It will be in the recollection of the reader that we 

 have previously quoted Mr Scoresby's words " I 

 have myself seen a Sea-Horse under such circum- 

 stances, that it required little stretch of imagination 

 to mistake it for a human being, and the surgeon 

 actually reported to me that he had seen a man 

 with his head above the water." Many of these 

 narratives have had their origin in the Northern 

 nations, where the herbivorous cete are certainly 

 rare; and this fact quite harmonizes with the 

 more enlightened belief in these regions, that it 

 is generally some species of Seal, very frequently 

 the Barbata or Haaf-Seal, which, from its more 



