SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 





THE MERMAID. 



NEXT to the pleasure which the earnest zoologist derives 

 from study of the habits and structure of living animals, 

 and his intelligent appreciation of their perfect adaptation 

 to their modes of life, and the circumstances in which they 

 are placed, is the interest he feels in eliminating fiction 

 from truth, whilst comparing the fancies of the past with the 

 facts of the present. As his knowledge increases, he learns 

 that the descriptions by ancient writers of so-called " fabu- 

 lous creatures " are rather distorted portraits than invented 

 falsehoods, and that there is hardly one of the monsters of old 

 which has not its prototype in Nature at the present day. 

 The idea of the Lernean Hydra, whose heads grew again 

 when cut off by Hercules, originated, as I have shown in 

 another chapter, in a knowledge of the octopus ; and in 

 the form and movements of other animals with which we 

 are now familiar we may, in like manner, recognise the 

 similitude and archetype of the mermaid. 



But we must search deeply into the history of mankind 

 to discover the real source of a belief that has prevailed in 

 almost all ages, and in all parts of the world, in the 

 existence of a race of beings uniting the form of man with 

 that of the fish. A rude resemblance between these 



