THE MERMAID 201 



grain, and by night feed on the corn crops and grass, and are also 

 very fond of the ripe fruit of the palms. To obtain these they encircle 

 in their em-brace the trees which are young and flexible, and, shaking 

 them violently, enjoy the fruit which they thus cause to fall. When 

 morning dawns they return to the sea, and plunge beneath the waves." 



^Elian seems to have derived this information from 

 Megasthenes, already referred to ; but in another chapter,* 

 he writes with greater certainty concerning these semi- 

 human whales, and claims divine authority for his belief in 

 the existence of tritons. 



" Although," he says, " we have no rational explanation nor absolute 

 proof of that which fishermen are said to be able to affirm concerning 

 the form of the tritons, we have the sworn testimony of many persons 

 that there are in the sea cetaceans which from the head down to the 

 middle of the body resemble the human species. Demostratus, in his 

 works on fishing, says that an aged triton was seen near the town of 

 Tanagra, in Bceotia, which was like the drawings and pictures of 

 tritons, but its features were so obscured by age, and it disappeared so 

 quickly, that its true character was not easily perceptible. But on the 

 spot where it had rested on the shore were found some rough and very 

 hard scales which had become detached from it. A certain senator 

 one of those selected by lot to carry on the administration of Achaia 

 and the duties of the annual magistracy " (the mayor, in fact) " being 

 anxious to investigate the nature of this triton, put a portion of its 

 skin on the fire. It gave out a most horrible odour; and those 

 standing by were unable to decide whether it belonged to a terrestrial 

 or marine animal. But the magistrate's curiosity had an evil ending, 

 for very soon afterwards, whilst crossing a narrow creek in a boat, he 

 fell overboard and was drowned ; and the Tanagreans all regarded 

 this as a judgment upon him for his crime of impiety towards the 

 triton an interpretation which was confirmed when his decomposing 

 body was cast ashore, for it emitted exactly the same odour as had 

 the burned skin of the triton. The Tanagreans and Demostratus 

 explain whence the triton had strayed, and how it was stranded in 

 this place. I believe that tritons exist, and I reverentially produce 

 as my witness a most veracious god namely, Apollo Didymaeus, 

 whom no man in his senses would presume to regard as unworthy of 



* Lib. xiii. cap. xxi. 



