eo4 FISHING GOSSIP. 
@ 
the feet and legs, which are very dangerous, if not 
pulled out whole ; therefore when a worm begins to 
appear out of the flesh, they tie the end of it to a 
roller, and wrap it round gently by degrees. If it 
break, the remaining part in the flesh often proves 
fatal; the whole would be a yard or more in length.” 
But we fancy we have given sufficient examples 
of superstitions affecting water. We could easily 
multiply them almost ad infinitum, even down to 
rivers which, like “the Avon, near St. Vincent's 
Rock, Cornwall,” are “so full of diamonds, that a 
man may fill whole baskets with them ;” we will 
spare the recapitulation, however, and hasten on to 
another genus which may perhaps be classed in some 
future catalogue of the British Museum as— 
“Opp FIsH,” 
Let us take Mermaids to begin with :— 
Dr Meyer assures us, “that in 1403 a mermaid . 
was cast ashore near Haerlem, who was brought to 
feed upon bread and milk, taught to spin, and lived. 
many years. John Gerard of Leyden adds, that she 
would frequently pull off her clothes, and run towards 
the water; and that she imitated speech, but it was 
so confused a noise as not to be understood by ahy- 
body; she was buried in the churchyard because’ 
she had learnt to make the sign of the cross.” He 
