The Icelanders believe _Seals_ to be the offspring of Pharaoh and his host; who, they assert, were changed into these animals when overwhelmed in the Red Sea. The _Grampus_, _Porpoise_, and _Dolphin_, have each from the earliest ages been the subject of numerous superstitions and fables, particularly the latter, which was believed to have a great attachment to the human race, and to succour them in accidents by sea; it is a perfectly straight fish, yet even painters have promulgated a falsity respecting it, by representing it from the curved form in which it appears above water, bent like the letter S reversed. "The inhabitants of Pesquare," says Dr. Belon, "and of the borders of Lake Gourd are firmly persuaded that the _Carp_ of those lakes are nourished with pure gold; and a great portion of the people in the Lyonnois are fully satisfied that the fish called _humble_ and _ernblons_ eat no other food than gold. There is not a peasant in the environs of the Lake of Bourgil who will not maintain that the _Laurets_, a fish sold daily in Lyons, feed on pure gold alone. The same is the belief of the people of the Lake Paladron in Savoy, and of those near Lodi. But," adds the Doctor, "having carefully examined the stomachs of these several fishes, I have found that they lived on other substances, and that from the anatomy of the stomach it is impossible that they should be able to digest gold." This fable, therefore, with that of the _Chameleon_ living on air only, and some others which we shall have occasion to mention, may be regarded amongst those exploded by science. The fable of the _Kraken_ has been referred to imperfect and exaggerated accounts of monstrous _Polypi_ infesting the northern seas; how far may not the _Cuttle-fish_ have given rise to this fiction? In hot countries (our readers will remember that in a late paper, _Mirror_, vol. xvii. pp. 282-299, we directed their attention to the similarity of superstitions in every country of the world, hence infering a common, and most probably oriental origin for all)--in hot countries cuttle-fish are found of gigantic dimensions; the Indians affirm that some have been seen two fathoms broad over their centre; and each arm (for this kind is the eight-armed cuttle-fish) nine fathoms long!!! Lest these animals should fling their arms over the Indians' light canoes, and draw them and their owners into the sea, they fail not to be provided with an axe to chop them off. The ancients believed that the oil of the _Grayling_ obliterated freckles and small-pox marks. The adhesive qualities of the _Remora_, or _Sucking-fish_, and its habit of darting against and fixing itself to the side of a vessel, caused the ancients to believe that the possessors of it had the power of arresting the progress of a ship in full sail.