PREFACE.

The little book 'Sea Monsters Unmasked,' recently issued as one of the Handbooks in connection with the Great International Fisheries Exhibition has met with so favourable a reception, that I have been honoured by the request to continue the subject, and to treat also of some of the Fables of the Sea, which once were universally believed, and even now are not utterly extinct.

The topic is not here exhausted. Other sea fables and fallacies might be mentioned and explained; but the amount of letter-press, and the number of ill.u.s.trations that can be printed without loss for the small sum of one shilling--the price at which these Handbooks are uniformly published--is necessarily limited. I have, therefore, thought it better to endeavour to make each chapter as complete as possible than to crowd into the s.p.a.ce allotted to me a greater variety of subjects less fully and carefully discussed.

I have the pleasure of acknowledging the kind a.s.sistance I have again received in the matter of ill.u.s.trations. I gratefully appreciate Mr.

Murray's permission to use the woodcut of Hercules slaying the Hydra, taken from Smith's 'Cla.s.sical Dictionary,' and those of the golden ornaments found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenae, and figured in the very interesting book in which his excavations there are described. I have also to thank the proprietors of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, the _Leisure Hour_, and _Land and Water_, for the use of ill.u.s.trations especially mentioned in the text.

HENRY LEE.

SAVAGE CLUB; _Sept. 4th, 1883_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE MERMAID 1

THE LERNEAN HYDRA 48

SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS 59

THE "SPOUTING" OF WHALES 62

THE "SAILING" OF THE NAUTILUS 76

BARNACLE GEESE--GOOSE BARNACLES 98

LIST OF ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

FIG. PAGE

A MERMAID. _From a picture by Otto Sinding_ _Frontispiece_

1. NOAH, HIS WIFE AND THREE SONS, AS FISH-TAILED DEITIES. 2 _From a gem in the Florentine Gallery. After Calmet_

2. HEA, OR NOAH, THE G.o.d OF THE FLOOD. _Khorsabad_ 3

3. DAGON. _From a bas-relief. Nimroud_ 4

4. DAGON: HALF MAN, HALF FISH. _From Lamy's 'Apparatus 5 Biblicus'_

5. DAGON. _From an agate signet. Nineveh_ "

6. FISH AVATAR OF VISHNU. _After Calmet and Maurice_ 6

7. ATERGATIS, THE G.o.dDESS OF THE SYRIANS. _From a 8 Phoenician Coin_

8. VENUS RISING FROM THE SEA, SUPPORTED BY TRITONS. _After 9 Calmet_

9. VENUS DRAWN IN HER CHARIOT BY TRITONS. _From two 10 Corinthian Coins_

10. DITTO. 11

11. SEAL, DRAWN AS A FISH. _From the Catacombs at Rome_ "

12. MERMAID AND FISHES OF AMBOYNA. _After Valentyn_ 17

13. A j.a.pANESE ARTIFICIAL MERMAID 27

14. AN ARTIFICIAL MERMAID. _Probably j.a.panese_ 28

15. PORTRAIT OF A MERMAID SAID TO HAVE BEEN CAPTURED IN j.a.pAN 29

16. THE DUGONG. _From Sir J. Emerson Tennent's 'Ceylon'_ 43

17. THE MANATEE 45

18. FIGURE OF A CALAMARY, FROM THE TEMPLE OF BAYR-EL-BAHREE 50

19. FIGURE OF AN OCTOPUS ON A GOLD ORNAMENT FOUND BY DR. 51 SCHLIEMANN AT MYCENae

20. DITTO. 52

21. DITTO. 53

22. DITTO. "

23. HERCULES SLAYING THE LERNEAN HYDRA 57

24. THE PHYSETER INUNDATING A SHIP. _After Olaus Magnus_ 64

25. A WHALE POURING WATER INTO A SHIP FROM ITS BLOW-HOLE. 64 _After Olaus Magnus_

26. SPERM WHALES "SPOUTING" 65

27. THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta argo_) SAILING 76