MONSTEKS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 



771 



be quite authentic. Thus we see Olaus Magnus represent 

 in one of his works a company of fishermen warming 

 themselves and cooking their food at a glowing fire lighted 

 on the body of one of these fantastic creatures; but the 

 author has sketched a cetacean, not a polypus. Gesner, 

 a zoologist of the Renaissance, seems to believe such 

 fables, for he reproduces the figure given by the learned 

 Swede. 



'''SS. Marine Monster. — Facsimile from the Work of Olaus Magnus: Dc Gent. Sept. 



In the wide field of absurdities, Denis de Montfort 

 displays credulity almost surpassing belief He asserts, 

 with a strong sense of conviction, that amid these great 

 seas there are gigantic cuttle-fish, which, by means of 

 their immense arms thickly covered with suckers, en- 

 circle ships and wreck them by plunging them into 

 the abyss. 



The naturalist even attributes the inexplicable disap- 

 pearance of some of our ships to these formidable tenants 

 of the ocean. He is so convinced of the truth of this fact, 

 that he devotes one of the plates of Buflfon's work to the 

 exhibition of it. We there see a monstrous cuttle-fish 

 with flaming eyes, the horrible arms of which are twined 

 round the masts of a ship of war, which they are tightly 

 straining, while the animal looks as if it would devour it. 



