STRANGE SEA CREATURES. 203 



according to Berosus, the animal had two human feet which 

 projected from each side of the tail ; and, still stranger, it 

 had a human voice and human language " This strange 

 monster sojourned among the rude people during the day, 

 taking no food, but retiring to the sea again at night, and 

 continued for some time teaching them the arts of civilized 

 life." A picture of this stranger is said to have been pre- 

 served at Babylon for many centuries. With a probable 

 substratum of truth, the story in its latest form is as fabulous 

 as Autolycus's " ballad of a fish that appeared upon the 

 coast, on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand 

 fathoms above water, and sang a ballad against the hard 

 hearts of maids." 



It is singular, by the way, how commonly the power of 

 speech, or at least of producing sounds resembling speech 

 or musical notes, was attributed to the creature which 

 imagination converted into a man-fish or woman-fish. 

 Dugongs and manatees make a kind of lowing noise, which 

 could scarcely be mistaken under ordinary conditions for the 

 sound of the human voice. Yet, not only is this peculiarity 

 ascribed to the mermaid and siren (the merman and triton 

 having even the supposed power of blowing on conch-shells), 

 but in more recent accounts of encounters with creatures 

 presumably of the seal tribe and allied races, the same 

 feature is to be noticed. The following account, quoted by 

 Mr. Gosse from a narrative by Captain Weddell, the well- 

 known geographer, is interesting for this reason amongst 

 others. It also illustrates well the mixture of erroneous details 

 (the offspring, doubtless, of an excited imagination) with the 

 correct description of a sea creature actually seen : " A 

 boat's crew were employed on Hall's Island, when one of 

 the crew, left to take care of some produce, saw an animal 

 whose voice was musical. The sailor had lain down, and at 

 ten o'clock he heard a noise resembling human cries, and as 

 daylight in these latitudes never disappears at this season " 

 (the Antarctic summer), " he rose and looked around, but, 

 on seeing no person, returned to bed. Presently he heard 



