Nature and Art, December 1, 1866.] 
MORSELS SAVED FROM MOTH AND MOUSE. 
223 
call a Corpo-Santo ; it appeared like the flame of 
a candle, and (as seamen observe) always presages 
a storm. It was foul weatlier all that day, and 
was so vehement the night following, that the sea 
ofttimes over-raked the ship.” “ When great fishes 
appear in great numbers, leaping about a ship, it 
presages a storm : some call it playing ; but I 
imagine,” says the philosophical author, “ that this 
motion proceeds from some pain or other they are 
afflicted with against bad weather.” 
“ The greatest enemy of mankind is man,” is an 
old axiom. It is well, then, that he possesses some 
friends amongst the brute creation, as the dog, and, 
may we add, the horse. And it would seem that 
he is not destitute of those who love him amongst 
the fish, for we learn from Sir Thornes Herbert, 
that, while he was on the coast of Sanquebar, — a 
large kingdom on the east side of the Cape of Good 
Hope,— he saw there great numbers of dolphins, 
of which he says, “ they much affect the company 
of men, and are nourished like men ; they are 
always constant to their mates, generate by sperm, 
embrace, join, and go with young ten months ; so 
tenderly affected to their parents, that, when they 
are three hundred years old, they feed and defend 
them against hungry fishes ; and when they die 
carry them ashore and bury them.” We are not 
told how they contrive to perform the funeral 
ceremony ; for another writer (Dr. Grew) describes 
the dolphin as of about two yards and a half long. 
“ His tail is expanded in a peculiar way, not 
uprightly, as in other fishes, but horizontally ; by 
the help of which he makes his gamboles above the 
water, and at the same time takes his breath. By 
this form (sic) being pretty large, he casts himself 
forward, and is said to exceed all other fishes in 
swiftness.” Granted that he can “ gambole ” and 
“ cast himself forward,” when half-seas over, this 
would be far from a decorous movement ashore, in 
which to indulge while attending the funeral of his 
grandmother. But Pliny would have us believe 
that the dolphin is capable of undertaking even 
stranger feats, for he, and others, relate a story 
of one of these fishes which frequented the Lake 
of Lucrin : — 
“ A boy that went every day to school from Baia 
to Puzzoli, used to feed this dolphin with bread, 
who became at last so familiar with the boy, that 
he carried him often on his back over the bay.” 
Appian says he was an eye-witness of the act, 
“ besides many more that flocked from all parts to 
see it] and Solin affirms that at last it was so 
common that it was scarce any more regarded as an 
extraordinary thing.” 
This “going a wooing” by a Dolphin naturally 
directs us to the Frog. We are assured in black- 
letter that, although he is well known, his virtues 
physically are comparatively little understood. 
But “ all parts of him are good and profitable for 
mankind. The heart,” Arnoldus has it, in lib. 
I, Breu., “is especially so.” One who was troubled 
with a dire complaint was perfectly cured by 
swallowing, four or five mornings, the heai’ts of frogs. 
“ The lungs of frogs are a preservative against the 
falling sickness, and so is the liver,” as Timotheus 
relates. “ The liver dried and mixed with honey, ap- 
plied to the toothache, is a perfect cure,” as Nicander 
hath it. Wecherus testifies, “ the same beaten to 
powder and drunk, is good against a quartane ague ” 
(lib. 2, Antidot. sped.). “ The gall,” as Pliny hath it, 
“dissolved in honey, cures the flux.” “The blood 
is good against growing of hairs, — their fat dropt 
into the ears cures deafness, — the spawn or sperm 
of them put into a linen cloth and applied to the 
hemroides is excellent,” as Gallius, in his Basilica 
Chymica, asserts. “ The same kills the itch of the 
hands, and redness of the face, and is good against 
any burnings,” as Quercetan testifies (lib. Pharmac.), 
“ taken in March.” “All these are known for truths,” 
for doth not Aldrovandus, that famous author, tell 
us as much in his History of Quadrupeds, lib. 1, 
page 60 1 “ The troublesome unpleasant noise of 
frogs in the night will cease if you set a candle 
burning on the bank-side nigh the water where 
they be, or else many lights, according to the 
greatness of the place where they be.” We quote 
the latter fact on the authority of Africanus Geopont, 
and if nothing else, it serves to show that frogs, 
albeit considered powerful for good in dark ages, 
dread the light. Would that the croaking of some 
other animals could be as effectually stayed by 
enlightenment. 
We must leave the operations of the Frogs, and 
hop back into the water amongst our friends the 
fishes. Let us not, however, in gallantry pass over 
what we have gleaned of “ women-fishes.” 
“ In some lakes of Angola is frequently seen the 
creature called Pesiengoni by the natives, by the 
English Syrens, because, when taken, they fetch 
many sighs and mourn like a woman, and are 
something like in shape. [The Syrenic pun is not 
ours, but of an age to know better.] There is a 
hand of this creature at Leyden.” Similar fish- 
women, or women-fish, are recorded by Collier, 
whom it may be enough to quote, although the 
scientific may refer to Atlas , 1740, are closely 
allied in many respects to “ God’s chief work.” 
“The Spaniards,” says Collier, “call them Juguete 
de agua, and the natives Axolotl. And it was like- 
wise pronounced as a fact in natural history, that 
Manilla possessed these women-fish in great numbers, 
they being so called because they had breasts like a 
woman.” 
But to descend from V enus amongst fishes, only, 
it may be, to behold her again in the heavens, let 
us dilate from the lower ooze of the sea upon the 
“ Star-gazer.” Rondeletius is particularly anxious 
that we should believe his story, and few of our 
readers Avill not fail to recognize our friend under 
his old name. “ This fish [the Star-gazer] hath a 
slender membraneous string in his mouth, which he 
projects and draws in at pleasure, as a serpent does 
his tongue: with this he decoys little fishes, and 
then preys upon them. For, plunging himself in 
mud,” &c. &c. 
If Nature and Art has any alderman amongst 
its readers, we beg the following mouth-watering 
account of a turtle may be omitted, as in the case 
