As I commence this little history of two sea monsters there comes to my mind a remark made to me by my friend, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens—"Mark Twain"—which illustrates a feeling that many a writer must have experienced when dealing with a subject that has been previously well handled. Expressing to me one day the gratification he felt in having made many pleasant acquaintances in England, he added, with dry humour, and a grave countenance, "Yes! I owe your countrymen no grudge or ill-will. I freely

In the legends and traditions of northern nations, stories of the existence of a marine animal of such enormous size that it more resembled an island than an organised being frequently found a place. It is thus described in an ancient manuscript (about A.D. 1180), attributed to the Norwegian King Sverre; and the belief in it has been alluded to by other Scandinavian writers from an early period to the present day. It was an obscure and mysterious sea-monster, known as the Kraken, whose form and

The belief in the existence of sea-serpents of formidable dimensions is of great antiquity. Aristotle, writing about B.C. 340, says  [22]  :—"The serpents of Libya are of an enormous size. Navigators along that coast report having seen a great quantity of bones of oxen, which they believe, without doubt, to have been devoured by the serpents. These serpents pursued them when they left the shore, and upset one of their triremes"—a vessel of a large class, having three banks of oars. Pliny tells u

Next to the pleasure which the earnest zoologist derives from study of the habits and structure of living animals, and his intelligent appreciation of their perfect adaptation to their modes of life, and the circumstances in which they are placed, is the interest he feels in eliminating fiction from truth, whilst comparing the fancies of the past with the facts of the present. As his knowledge increases, he learns that the descriptions by ancient writers of so-called "fabulous creatures" are rat

The mystery of the Kraken, of which I treated in a companion volume to the present, recently published, is not difficult to unravel. The clue to it is plain, and when properly taken up is as easily unwound, to arrive at the truth, as a cocoon of silk, to get at the chrysalis within it. It was a boorish exaggeration, a legend of ignorance, superstition, and wonder. But when such a skein of facts has passed through the hands of the poets, it is sure to be found in a much more intricate tangle; and

In the description given by Homer, in the twelfth book of the 'Odyssey,' of the unfortunate nymph Scylla, transformed by the arts of Circe into a frightful monster, the same typical idea as in the case of the Hydra is perceptible. The lurking octopus, having its lair in the cranny of a rock, watching in ambush for passing prey, seizing anything coming within its reach with one or more of its prehensile arms, even brandishing these fear-inspiring weapons out of water in a threatening manner, and

One of the sea-fallacies still generally believed, and accepted as true, is that whales take in water by the mouth, and eject it from the spiracle, or blow-hole. The popular ideas on this subject are still those which existed hundreds of years ago, and which are expressed by Oppian in two passages in his 'Halieutics': and Eminent zoologists and intelligent observers, who have had full opportunities of obtaining practical knowledge of the habits of these great marine mammals, have forcibly combat

One of the prettiest fables of the sea is that relating to the Paper Nautilus, the constructor and inhabitant of the delicate and beautiful shell which looks as if it were made of ivory no thicker than a sheet of writing paper. It is an old belief that in calm weather it rises from the bottom of the sea, and, elevating its two broadly-expanded arms, spreads to the gentle air, as a sail, the membrane, light as a spider's web, by which they are united; and that, seated in its boat-like shell, it t

The belief that some wild geese, instead of being hatched from eggs, like other birds, grew on trees and rotten wood has never been surpassed as a specimen of ignorant credulity and persistent error. There are two principal versions of this absurd notion. One is that certain trees, resembling willows, and growing always close to the sea, produced at the ends of their branches fruit in form like apples, and each containing the embryo of a goose, which, when the fruit was ripe, fell into the water