File:Sea fables explained (15401445888).jpg

THE MERMAID. Tj
for the creature continued to make a musical noise during
the tw.o minutes he gazed at it, and, on perceiving him,
disappeared in an instant.
The universality of the belief in an animal of combined
human and fish-like form is very remarkable. That it
exists amongst the Japanese we have evidence in their
curious and ingeniously-constructed models which are
occasionally brought to this countr.^ I have one of
these which is so exactly the counterpart of that which
my friend .\Ir. Frank Buckland described, originally in
Land and Water, and which forms the subject of a
chapter in his ' Curiosities of Natural Histor\-,' * that the
portrait of the one (Fig. 13) will equally well represent
^?.»»
FIG. 13. — A JAPANESE ARTIFICIAL MERMAID.
the other. The lower half of the body is made of the skin
and scales of a fish of the carp family, and fastened on
to this, so neatly that it is hardly possible to detect where
the joint is made, is a wooden body, the ribs of which are so
prominent that the poor mermaid has a miserable and half-
star\^ed appearance. The upper part of the body is in the
attitude of a Sphinx, leaning upon its elbows and fore-arms.
The arms are thin and scraggy, and the fingers attenuated
and skeleton-like. The nails are formed of small pieces of