“The waters pushed, the waters swelled, A fisher sat near by, And earnestly his line he held, With tranquil heart and eye; And while he sits and watches there He sees the waves divide, And lo! a maid with glistening hair Springs from the troubled tide.” --GOETHE, _Trans._ When I was a child I was greatly fascinated with tales of mermaids, fabulous damsels who lived in the ocean. They had beautiful faces and arms, and long, pale green hair, which they combed with golden combs, and decked with sea-weeds and pearls. They swain like fish, and sang most sweetly. When I learned that mermaids were only creatures of fancy, and did not really exist, I felt as if I had been robbed of friends. A few years later a bronzed, wrinkled old fisherman restored to me my mermaids as real creatures, even more interesting than the sea maids of myth. And so there is a real live mermaid! Where shall we find her? My old sailor said he first met her some miles out at sea, in the latitude of Florida. She was swimming along at ease, her head held above water, and she carried on her arm her baby, whose head she stuck up above the waves. Was she beautiful? Had she large, lovely eyes? No; her face was something like that of a cow, but instead of the large black eyes of a cow, she had tiny eyes, smaller than those of a pig. But were not her arms beautiful? No; her arms were flat, short, somewhat of an oval shape; in fact, they were flippers rather than arms, though she had free use of the elbow, shoulder, and wrist joints. She had no hands, no fingers, but at the end of each flipper were three small, flat nails. Had she long, waving hair? No; she had a few coarse hairs about her face, and a scanty covering of very fine, short hairs over her body. Could she sing? Unfortunately all real mermaids are dumb. Finally, was she of a sea-green color? Not at all; her skin was very thick, and of a dark gray, finely wrinkled all over, very like the skin of an elephant. Her upper lip was divided into two deep lobes, and she had no lower limbs, but instead a tail, with a wide, strong fin. Oh, an ugly, horrible creature! By no means; on the contrary, as amiable, mild, gentle, playful, kindly a creature as ever drew breath. A fish, of course! Indeed not: a mammal; a mammal of the sea. The class mammalia has orders of animals that live in the sea; other orders of creatures that live mostly in the air, and very many other creatures that live on the land, and some that spend their lives under ground. Any animal that suckles its young is a mammal, whether a swimming, flying, walking, climbing, or burrowing creature. The sea mammals are the whales, dolphins, porpoises, dugongs, and this mermaid.