362 
pliistt's natueal histoet. 
[Book IX. 
the most bulky inhabitant, raising itself aloft like some vast 
column, and as it towers above the sails of ships, belching forth, 
as it were, a deluge of water. In the ocean of Gades there is 
a tree,^*^ with outspread branches so vast, that it is supposed 
that it is for that reason it has never yet entered the Straits. 
There are fish also found there which are called sea -wheels,"^ in 
consequence of their singular conformation ; they are divided 
by four spokes, the nave being guarded on every side by a 
couple of eyes. 
CHAP. 4. (5.) THE FOEMS OF THE TBITONS AND NEEEIDS. THE 
FOEMS OF SEA ELEPHANTS. 
A deputation of persons from Olisipo,^^ * that had been sent 
for the purpose, brought word to the Emperor Tiberius that a 
triton had been both seen and heard in a certain cavern, blowing 
a conch-shell, and of the form under which they are usually 
that it was the porpoise ; but, as he justly remarks, the size of that animal 
does not at all correspond with the magnitude of the " physeter," as here 
mentioned. 
20 Cuvier suggests that the idea of such an animal as the one here 
mentioned, probably took its rise in the kind of sea star-fish, now known 
as Medusa's head, the Asterias of Linnaeus ; but that the enormous size here 
attributed to it, has no foundation whatever in reality. He remarks also, 
that the inhabitants of the north of Europe, have similar stories relative 
to a huge polypus, which they call the "kraken." "We may, however, be 
allowed to observe, that the " kraken," or " korven," mentioned by good 
bishop Pontoppidan, bears a closer resemblance to the so-called ''sea- 
serpent," than to anything of the polypus or sepia genus. 
'^^ "Eotae." Cuvier suggests that this idea of the wheel was taken 
from the class of zoophytes named "Medusae," by Linnaeus, which have the 
form of a disc, divided by radii, and dots which may have been taken for 
eyes. But then, as he says, there are none of them of an excessive size, 
as Pliny would seem to indicate by placing them in this Chapter, and which 
-Lilian has absolutely attributed to them in B. xiii. c. 20. Of the largest 
rhizostoma, Cuvier says, that he had even seen, the diameter of the disc 
did not exceed two feet. 
21* Lisbon. See B. iv. c. 35. 
22 One of the Scholiasts on Homer says, that before the discovery of the 
brazen trumpet by the Tyrrhenians, the conch-shell was in general use 
for that purpose. Hardouin, with considerable credulity, remarks here, 
that it is no fable, that the nereids and tritons had a human face ; and says 
that no less than fifteen instances, ancient and modern, had been adduced, 
in proof that such was the fact. He says that this was the belief of Scali- 
ger, and quotes the book of Aldrovandus on Monsters, p. 36. But, as 
Cuvier remarks, it is impossible to explain these stories of nereids and 
tritons, on any other grounds than the fraudulent pretences of those who 
