CHAP. viz. THE MERMAID. 99 



Nevertheless there is as I write a mermaid a veritable 

 siren at the Zoo. And you now have an opportunity of 

 seeing for yourselves how far the living, breathing, lettuce- 

 eating reality resembles the beautiful, long-haired, fish- 

 tailed creature of fable and romance. Come with me to 

 the new Reptile House. 



" That ugly creature the real, original mermaid ! Why, it's 

 more like a porpoise ! You surely cannot mean to tell us that 

 this creature with its great swollen bristly lips, its little eyes? 

 short neck (where are the long waving hair-tresses ?), its 

 rounded dun-coloured body, its paddle limbs, its flattened 



MANATEE. 



spoon-shaped tail this undersized whale, creeping along 

 the floor of the tank on the tips of its flippers, tucking in 

 lettuces with its fat blubber lips you cannot seriously ask 

 us to suppose that this comically repulsive fellow, is the 

 mermaid of science and sober fact ? " 



Yes ! This curious creature and its allies seem to be the 

 organic centres of the mermaid and siren stories. They 

 are indeed called by scientific men the Sirenia. And this 

 is not the only instance in which the naked reality, stripped 

 of the investiture of myth and poesy, is discovered after 

 all to be dull and commonplace. It would seem that the 



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