ORDER V. THE CARXIVORA. 231 



tlic waist up, and passing into the fish form below, being endowed with 

 superior powers, capable of calming tlie raging billows, seducing the luck- 

 less sailor, and charming him to his destruction. The ancient poets con- 

 stantly refer to them, under the name of iritons, sirens, and sca-ntjmphi, 

 and relate marvellous tales of their powers, almost supernatural, and theu' 

 exploits. The nations of the north of Europe entertained this faith more 

 profoundly even tlian those of the south, and their poetry abounds with allu- 

 sions to, and descriptions of, these ideal beings, which their fruitful imagina- 

 tions invested with magical prerogatives. There is no question but that the 

 seal and walrus M-ere the original type and source from which fancy created 

 this wondrous race. All the descriptions of mermaids wliich have been 

 recorded clearly indicate this. In Ilibbert's ''Shetland Islands" we find the 

 following grapliio account of the splendor and magnificence of the mermaid's 

 world, and of some of her extraordinary habits : " Beneath the depths of 

 the ocean an atmosphere exists adapted to the respiring organs of certain 

 beings, resembling iu form the human race, who are possessed of sur- 

 passing beauty, of limited supernatural powers, and liable to the incidents 

 of death. They dwell in a wide territory of the globe, far below the region 

 of fishes, over which the sea, like the cloudy canopy of our sky, loftily rolls, 

 and there they possess habitations constructed of the pearly and coralline 

 productions of the ocean. Having lungs not adapted to a watery medium, 

 but to the nature of atmospheric air, it would be impossible for them to pass 

 through the volume of waters that intervenes between the submarine and 

 supramarine world, were it not for their extraordinary power of entering the 

 skin of some animal capable of existing in the sea. One shape they put on 

 is that of an animal human above the waist, yet terminating below in the 

 tail of a fisli ; and thus possessing an amphibious nature, they are enabled to 

 exist, not only in the ocean, but to land on the shores, where they frc(|ucntly 

 lighten themselves of their sea dress, resume their proper shape, and with 

 much curiosity examine the nature of this upper Avorld." 



In 1823, jNIr. Edmonston, the well-known naturalist, and generally a 

 correct observer, sent to the professor of natural history in the University 

 of Edinburgh the following communication, relating to an event that had 

 recently occurred : " A short while ago a fishing-boat, off the Island of 

 Yell, one of the Siietland group, captured a mermaid, which had got en- 

 tangled in the lines. The animal was about three feet long, the upper part 

 of the body resembling the human, with protuberant mauuna% like a woman ; 

 the face, forehead, and neck were short, and resembling those of a monkey; 

 the arms, which were small, were kept folded across the breast; the fingers 

 were distinct, not webbed ; a few stiff, long bristles were on the top of the 

 head, extending down to the shoulders, and these it could erect or depress at 



