280 
ANIMAL-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE’s TIME. 
But the use of coral as a “help to the teeth of children ” is also 
mentioned by him, as it is in a passage quoted by Miss Phipson from 
a poem by G. Fletcher :— 
“ So from your growth late be you rent away, 
And hung with silver bels and whistles shrill. 
Unto those children be you given to play! ” 
(Nichols’ Progresses of James I., vol. i., p. 17.) 
One of Purchas’s pilgrims wandering through Brazil, reports that 
on the shores of that country they “ find great store of white stone 
corrall under water; it groweth like small trees all in leaves, and 
canes, as the red corrall of India, and if this also were so, there would 
be great riches in this countrie, for the great abundance there is of it; 
it is very white, it is gotten with difficulty, they make lime of it also.” 
—(Purchas, Eev. S. “ His Pilgrimes,” vol. iv., p. 1316, 1625.) 
Everyone will remember Shakespeare’s graceful reference to coral 
in his lovely Ariel’s Song in the Tempeat :— 
“ Of his bones are coral made,” 
which clearly recognises the chemical base of coral. 
Miss Phipson does not quote, as she well might, Gerarde’s account 
of coral in his “ Herball,” which describes it as a “Sea-moss,” and 
where the following occurs :— 
“ There is found growing upon the rocks near unto the sea a 
certain matter wrought together of the foame or froth of the sea, 
which we call spunges, after the Latin name, which may very fitly be 
inserted among the Sea-mosses.” 
The most mythical of creatures is the Sea Serpent. This is no 
modern idea. The size of the monster varies according to the 
vividness of the imagination of the reporter. Of these Olaus Magnus 
(1658) gives a most detailed account. In a quotation reproduced in 
this book he says :— 
“ They who in works of navigation on the coast of Norway employ 
themselves in fishing or merchandise, do all agree in this strange story 
that there is a serpent there which is of a vast magnitude, namely, 
200 feet long, and moreover 20 feet thick; and is wont to live in rocks 
and caves toward the sea-coast about Berge; which will go alone from his 
holes in a clear night in summer, and devour calves, lambs, and hogs, 
or else he goes into the sea to feed on polypus, locusts, and all sorts of 
sea-crabs. He hath commonly hair hanging from his neck a cubit 
long, and sharp scales, and is black, and he hath flaming shining eyes. 
This snake disquiets the shippers, and he puts up his head on high 
like a pillar, and catcheth away men, and he devours them ; and this 
hapneth not but it signifies some wonderful change of the kingdom 
near at hand—namely, that the princes shall die or be banished; or 
some tumultuous wars shall presently follow. There is also another 
serpent of an incredible magnitude in a town called Moos, of the 
diocese of Hammer; which as a comet portends a change in all the 
world, so that portends a change in the kingdom of Norway, as it was 
