MAMMALOGY. 



was deemed by Linnaeus deserving of his reliance, we cannot be 

 surprised that he has placed it in his system as a species of the human 



since the Syrian deity here alluded to has lost all reputation as a divinity; 

 this supposed Mermaid, the object of Hindoo mythology and devotion, is 

 not the Dercete, or Syrian Siren, of Lucian, Pliny, and Diodorus Siculus, 

 whom offended Venus is feigned to have punished by transforming her 

 into a fish; it is no other than one of the transformations, or Avateras, of 

 Vishnu, an attribute of Brahma personified : an allegorical type of the 

 abatement of the waters of the Deluge and renovation of the earth in obe- 

 dience to the fiat of the supreme power after that catastrophe. Nor would 

 it be very difficult to prove from the most ancient remains of the Hinda 

 as well as the Chinese records of Yu,* that although the Hindoos believe 

 in several renovations of the earth, that which is implied in this instance 

 by the Avatera of the fish, with Vishnu emerging from its mouth, is pre- 

 cisely that of the Mosaic writings. This Avatera is usually represented in 

 ancient statues, sculptures, paintings and other emblems of the Hindoo 

 Temples, or in the books of their mythology, as a human figure with several 

 heads and arms rising out of the mouth of a fish, the fish erect or elevated 

 on its bending tail, more or less emergent from the waters, and bearing 

 above the waters^ surface the figure alluded to, in the same manner as the 

 bust of the Orang-Outang is here seen rising from the mouth (or rather the 

 decapitated body) of a Salmon. The chief objection to this idea seems to 

 be, that in this deformity instead of the human figure we have the ape. 

 May not this be an allusion to the " Mighty Ape " Hanuman, an imaginary 

 power of no small consideration in Hindu mythology ? According to their 

 ancient legends, although not immediately the favoured Rama in the in- 

 carnation of Vishnu, he was his chief general ; Hanuman, among other mira- 

 culous exploits, is allegorlcally reputed to have built a bridge from the con- 

 tinent of India to the island of Ceylon, to attack the evil Ravaha, an allusion 

 it has been imagined to the power of Hanuman over the waters of the deluge, 

 and of which power this effigy may be an emblem. There are other mytho- 

 logical figures among the Hindus in which beings of the land are seen 

 rising out of the mouths of fishes, as for example, in the Nereid wives of 

 the serpent Kaliya, but these are handsome beings of the human form, and 



* Yu of the Chinese, we presume the same as the Huw of the ancient Britons, 

 both implying, it is believed, the patriarch Noah, and having consequently areference 

 to the Mosaic deluge. 



VOL. II. T 



