6 4 



HA RD WICKE' S SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



ing of one, neckless, having the ears rising from the 

 shoulders, mouthless, the nose a proboscis, a foot or 

 so long ; this and the eyes are on the back of the 

 figure. Fig. 36 we may fairly include as an example 

 of distortion, while Fig. 40 is a monstrosity produced 

 by suppression. In another place he gives a drawing 

 of a man having two eyes in their natural position, 

 and beyond each of these another. 



One quaint picture shows us two men wearing 

 large ruffs and habited in quite the costume of " the 

 upper ten" of the seventeenth century, but their faces 

 are covered with thick hair, their eyes peeping out 

 like those of a Skye terrier. This idea k was too 

 grotesque not to utilise to the utmost, so the next 

 picture is that of a young lady in the same plight. 



It was a favourite mediaeval theory that all creatures 

 ■of the land had their marine counterparts. " There 

 is nothing," says the comparatively modern writer 

 Camden, " bred in any part of Nature, but the 

 same is in the sea " ; while Claus Magnus affirms 

 that " there be fishes like to dogs, cows, calves, 



Fig. 40. 



liorses, eagles, dragons, and what not." These 

 mysterious denizens of the deep were an unfailing 

 resource in the romances and poems of the middle 

 ages, and an article of faith with the writers on 

 natural history. On the Assyrian slabs we see the 

 "monster, upward man, and downward fish," while 

 the mermaid we all recognise !as a most familiar 

 instance of this belief in the presence of creatures at 

 least semi-human in the broad and mysterious expanse 

 of ocean. Bcewolf, the Saxon poet, writes of " the 

 sea-wolf of the abyss, the mighty sea-woman." The 

 •quotation is not altogether complimentary in its 

 sentiment : no lady of one's acquaintance would feel 

 flattered on being addressed as a sea-wolf. But 

 while a certain halo of romance has in these later 

 days gathered round the idea of the mermaiden, 

 those who really believed in her gave her credit for 

 deeds considerably more heinous than combing her 

 flowing hair in the sunlight, since her beauty was a 

 snare and destruction to those who came within its 

 fatal influence. 



This belief in sea-monsters of all kinds was 

 naturally not a chance that a man like Aldrovandus 

 would miss. He gives his imagination full scope, or 

 perhaps we should rather say his credulity, as he 

 introduces these creatures to us as things as real as 

 a rabbit ; his sea-monk, for instance, with tonsured 

 human head, arms replaced by fins, and legs by fishy 

 tail, being as matter-of-fact as one's vicar. Fig. 41 

 is given in all good faith as the true presentment of 

 a sea-bishop, though not at all our notion of a bishop 

 in his see. The right hand, it will be seen, is giving 



the benediction. The dragon of the deep (Fig. 37) 

 aims at being terrible, but merely succeeds in being 

 feeble. We cannot but feel that the draughtsman 

 here failed to reach our ideal. One has certainly 

 seen many representations of land-dragons far more 

 fear-inspiring than this bloated monster with ears 

 like a king Charles spaniel, and tail like a rat. 

 This illustration is from another source, the work of 

 Ambrosinus on the same subject, published " per- 

 missu superiorum " in the year 1642. While the 

 book is as quaint and grotesque as any of its rivals, 



