It is singular, by the way, how commonly the power of speech, or at least of producing sounds resembling speech or musical notes, was attributed to the creature which imagination converted into a man-fish or woman-fish. Dugongs and manatees make a kind of lowing noise, which could scarcely be mistaken under ordinary conditions for the sound of the human voice. Yet, not only is this peculiarity ascribed to the mermaid and siren (the merman and triton having even the supposed power of blowing on conch-shells), but in more recent accounts of encounters with creatures presumably of the seal tribe and allied races, the same feature is to be noticed. The following account, quoted by Mr. Gosse from a narrative by Captain Weddell, the well-known geographer, is interesting for this reason amongst others. It also illustrates well the mixture of erroneous details (the offspring, doubtless, of an excited imagination) with the correct description of a sea creature actually seen:—“A boat’s crew were employed on Hall’s Island, when one of the crew, left to take care of some produce, saw an animal whose voice was musical. The sailor had lain down, and at ten o’clock he heard a noise resembling human cries, and as daylight in these latitudes never disappears at this season” (the Antarctic summer), “he rose and looked around, but, on seeing no person, returned to bed. Presently he heard the noise again; he rose a second time, but still saw nothing. Conceiving, however, the possibility of a boat being upset, and that some of the crew might be clinging to detached rocks, he walked along the beach a few steps and heard the noise more distinctly but in a musical strain. Upon searching around, he saw an object lying on a rock a dozen yards from the shore, at which he was somewhat frightened. The face and shoulders appeared of human form and of a reddish colour; over the shoulders hung long green hair; the tail resembled that of the seal, but the extremities of the arms he could not see distinctly. The creature continued to make a musical noise while he gazed about two minutes, and on perceiving him it disappeared in an instant. Immediately, when the man saw his officer, he told this wild tale, and to add weight to his testimony (being a Romanist) he made a cross on the sand, which he kissed, as making oath to the truth of his statement. When I saw him he told the story in so clear and positive a manner, making oath to its truth, that I concluded he must really have seen the animal he described, or that it must have been the effects of a disturbed imagination.”