STRANGE SEA CREATURES. 201 



centaur, the minotaur, the winged horse, and so forth, have 

 Decome recognized as purely imaginary creatures, which had 

 their origin simply in the fanciful combination of known 

 forms, no existent creatures having even suggested these 

 monstrosities. 



It is not to be wondered at that the sea should have 

 been more prolific in monstrosities and in forms whose real 

 nature has been misunderstood Land animals cannot long 

 escape close observation. Even the most powerful and 

 ferocious beasts must succumb in the long run to man, and 

 in former ages, when the struggle was still undecided be- 

 tween some race of animals and savage man, individual 

 specimens of the race must often have been killed, and the 

 true appearance of the animal determined. Powerful winged 

 animals might for a longer time remain comparatively 

 mysterious creatures even to those whom they attacked, or 

 whose flocks they ravaged. A mighty bird, or a ptero- 

 dactylian creature (a late survivor of a race then fast dying 

 out), might swoop down on his prey and disappear with it 

 too swiftly to be made the subject of close scrutiny, still less 

 of exact scientific observation. Yet the general characteristics 

 even of such creatures would before long be known. From 

 time to time the strange winged monster would be seen 

 hovering over the places where his prey was to be found. 

 Occasionally it would be possible to pierce one of the race 

 with an arrow or a javelin ; and thus, even in those remote 

 periods when the savage progenitors of the present races of 

 man had to carry on a difficult contest with animals now 

 extinct or greatly reduced in power, it would become possible 

 to determine accurately the nature of the winged enemy. 

 But with sea creatures, monstrous, or otherwise, the case 

 would be very different To this day we remain ignorant 

 of much that is hidden beneath the waves of the " hollow- 

 sounding and mysterious main." Of far the greater number 

 of sea creatures', it may truly be said that we never see any 

 specimens except by accident, and never obtain the body of 

 any except by very rare accident. Those creatures of the 



