228 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



it was taken on the high seas, not long before the death 

 of Pope Paul III., which took place A.D. 1549. It was 

 of the size and shape of a Lion, it had four feet, not 

 mutilated, or imperfect as those of the Seal, and not 

 joined together as is the case with the beaver or duck, 



but perfect, and divided into toes with nails : a long 

 thin tail ending in hair ; ears hardly visible, and its 

 body covered with scales but he adds that Gisbertus 

 found fault with the artist, who had made the feet 

 longer than they ought to have been and the ears too 

 large for an aquatic animal. 



Gesner also gives us (and so does Aldrovandus) 

 pictures of the Monk and Bishop fishes. The Monk- 

 fish, he says, was caught off Norway, in a troubled sea : 

 and he quotes Bceothius as describing a similar monster 

 found in the Firth of Forth. The Bishop-fish was only 

 seen off the coast of Poland, A.D. 1531. 



The existence of these marine monsters had, at all 



