NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 217 



prefque fenfitive. Au moindre attouchement elle fe replie, 8c Va 

 fe caeher avec foil pedicule dans le rocher, d'ou elle etoit fortie. 

 Ses rayons font des bras, qui Ont bien l'air de ceux d'un Polype. 

 Quel charme pour un Phyficien, que de poffeder un Polype de 

 cette grandeur, 8c quelles obfervations n'y feroit 11 pas fur l'accro- 

 iffement 8c la reparation de fes parties ?" Biblioth. Raifonee, T. 

 xxxvii. p. 2,66. However this may he, it remains an unqueflion- 

 able truths that certain kinds of Polypus's grow to a monfhous 

 fize. Athanaf. Kircher fays, in his Mund. Subterran. P. I. p. 99, 

 that m the Sicilian feas there are found a kind of Star-fifh, which 

 have ten rays, or branches, and a body as big as that of a man : 

 but this bears no proportion to the bignefs of a Whale, which 

 Athenseus, in Lib., xiii. cap. vi. attributes to fome of them. Pliny, 

 lib. ix. cap. xxx. fpeaks of a fort of Polypus of a monflrous 

 fize, by the name of Ozsena *, becaufe it ditTufes a flrong fmell ; 

 for which reafon other Fifh are apt to follow them. This Angu- 

 larity agrees exactly with what has been faid already about the 

 Norvegian Krake, " Mire omnibus marinis expetentibus odorem." 

 Concerning the faid Polypus Pliny relates in the fame place, 

 according to the account he had received from L. Lucullus, the 

 proconful of Baetica, feveral flrange flories about their fize and 

 flrength ; as that they lay along the coaft, where they would 

 ileal the merchants goods, and drag them away with their long 

 claws ; fo that they' were obliged to fet dogs upon them : that 

 thofe animals could not bear the ftrong fmell, and were alfo 

 feverely handled by the creatures ; and that it was with great 

 difficulty they killed them with iron forks, &c. " Namque 

 8c afflatu terribili canes agebat, nunc extremis crinibus fUgellatos, 

 nunc robuflioribus brachiis, clavorum modo incuffos, segreque 

 multis tridentibus confici potuit." We learn from all this, that the 

 Polype, or Star-fifh, or, as we call it here, the whole genus of 

 Kors-Trold, have, amongfl their various fpecies, fome that are 

 much larger than others ; and, according to all appearance, even 

 the very largeft inhabitants of the ocean. If the axiom be true, 

 that greatnefs or littlenefs makes no change in the fpecies, then 

 this Krake mufl be of the Polypus kind, notwithflanding its 

 enormous fize. All that I have further to add is this, that ^anS 

 were we to credit the old vulgar opinion, concerning a Fifh that Remo ra . 

 had power to flop a fhip under full fail, we may conclude it 

 is impofTible that it (hould be that fmall Fifh, which from the 

 fable is called Remora, and is not bigger than a Herring. I 



* Immo vero potius quod fuave quippiam oleat. Graci ideo vocant f^a^mv, hoc 

 feculo Neapolitani Mufchardinum. Jacobus Dalccampius in Notis ad Plin. L. cit. 



Part II. K k k have 



