72 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
have not as yet been quite able to fully determine, nor is it certain whether 
it so bnrrows to eat or to secure a habitation. 
The Northern Sea-Cat (Chimcera monstrosa) is gluttonously carnivorous, 
and has been called “The King of the Herrings,” partly because of its great 
destruction of these food-fish, and partly because of a crown-like protuberance 
between its eyes. Like an unsportsman-like hunter, it is not content with kill¬ 
ing the herring as food, but seems to take a malicious pleasure in mangling 
thousands which it does not attempt to feed upon. It has a long, cone-shaped 
snout, a long, shark-like body, green eyes, which, in the dark, resemble those 
of the domestic cat, and two large, wing-shaped fins. Its coloring is silvery, 
with brown spots, it is three or four feet in length, and its caudal fin is attenu¬ 
ated until it resembles the snapper of a wdiip-lash. 
In Greek mythology the 
chimcera was a three-headed, 
fire-breathing monster, having 
the head of a lion, the middle 
body of a goat, and shaped 
like a dragon in the tail and 
posterior limbs. Mythology is 
generally regarded as a belief 
encrusted by superstition, and 
it is more than probable that 
the early Greek explorers and 
navigators met with many of 
the strange inhabitants of the 
deep, and in their ignorance of 
natural history, and through 
their tendency to polytheism, 
speedily converted a particle of 
fact into a mass of superstition. 
In the hands of the poets these 
superstitions grew beautiful, 
and have permeated the poeti¬ 
cal literature of all peoples ; still, 
none the less, from the stand¬ 
point of the naturalist these 
are foolish tales, exceeded even 
FLYING PEGASUS DRAGON. 
in marvellousness by the real curiosities of sea and land. In the world of our 
time it is believed to be more reverential, as well as more profitable, to study 
the wisdom of the Creator, as infinitely manifested in His works, than to replace 
this appreciative study by human speculations, no matter how beautiful may 
seem the creations of our imaginations. 
The Angler, or Frog Fish (.Lophius piscatorius ), is about three feet in length 
and hideous to look upon. It is not quite “all head,” but, like a mis-shapen 
dwarf, its head is larger than its body. Its mouth stretches in width beyond 
the body, and is capable of taking in an animal of its own size. The mouth is 
lined upon jaws, tongue, fauces and palate with an armament of movable, hooked 
teeth, while its nose terminates in a palm-shaped excrescence, whose lustre 
excels that of the professional inebriate, but which, unlike the provision 
