NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY, 



prefque fenfitive. Au moindre attouchement elle fe replie, & va 

 fe cacher avec fon 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 ny feroit 11 pas fur l'accro- 

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

 xxxvii. p. 266. However this may be, it remains an unqueftion- 

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

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

 that in 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 

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

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

 fize, by the name of Ozsena *, becaufe it diffufes a ftrong fmell ; 

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

 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 ftrange ftories about their fize and 

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

 fteal 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, 8cc. " Namque 

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

 nunc robuftioribus brachiis, clavorum modo incuffos, segreque 

 muitis 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, amongft 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 muft be of the Polypus kind, notwithftanding its 

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

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

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

 is impoffible 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. Graeci ideo vocant puyfriVi h°c 

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



PartIL Kkk have 



