PLATE LVir. 



The animal which Bontius describes and figures, and which he 

 says he saw alive, bears such a near resemblance to the human form 



that any one possessed of ordinary reflexion, much less a knowledge of 

 Natural History, or of Anatomy, could for a moment believe such a two- 

 fold organization possible. The fish considered as a Salmo should have 

 the swimming vesicle or bladder communicating with the oesophagus and 

 extending the whole length of the abdomen; the stomach straight and 

 long, and ending in numerous coecums; ovaries disposed thoughout a con- 

 siderable extent, and the heart and other organs so essential to the pur- 

 poses of life, exactly situated in that part of the compound object which is 

 here occupied by the abdominal region and all the viscera of the mammife- 

 rous being which protrudes so preposterously from the gape of the decapi- 

 tated skin. Were it not for this insertion of the abdomen so deeply into 

 the pectoral region of the fish, we might inquire whether it could possess in 

 a two-fold degree the organs of life. For in the thoracic region of the 

 Orang-Outang, which we see in part emerging from the fish skin, we must 

 presume that portion of the animal possessed all the thoracic viscera, 

 as the heart, lungs and other organs of mammiferous animals indispen- 

 sable to its vitality ; and were it not for the extensive occupation of the 

 pectoral region of the Salmo by the deep insertion of the trunk of the 

 Orang, we might also expect the organs of life peculiar to the piscivorous 

 race in that portion of this compound object. 



We can scarcely refrain from expressing some surprise that objections 

 like these, and which appear unanswerable, should have so entirely escaped 

 the observations of those votaries of delusion by whom the authenticity 

 of this pretended Mermaid had been espoused. But perhaps in this we 

 may conclude unjustly : it is possible some few of those most palpable in- 

 consistences have been perceived and that it is among the number of those 

 who have perceived them that we are to seek for those admirers of the mar- 

 vellous who, unable to reconcile it with any analogies in the course of 

 nature, have ventured to pronounce it a lusus naturcej' — Really a lusus ! 

 — a hybrid offspring between the Ape and Salmon!!! — well even in this 

 extravagance of thought, they are anticipated by the tales of ancient lore ; 

 by the poet Oppian more than fifteen centuries ago ; for this ancient 

 Greek has fabled in his Halieutics, the amours of the Sargos fish with the 

 goats of the mountains, much in the same manner as we are iiow to 

 imagine the Baboons of the forest indulge their sportive loves with the 

 finny race in the streams and rivers, or amidst the waves of the briny 

 waters ! 



