The life of . merous reports of these exami-nations, all of which were quite satisfactory. I am confident that the re-porters and editors who exam-ined this animal were honestlypersuaded that it was what itpurported to be—a veritablemermaid. Nor is this to bewondered at, since, if it was awork of art, the monkey andfish were so nicely conjoinedthat no human eye could de-tect the point where the junc-tion was formed. The spine ofthe fish proceeded in a straightand apparently unbroken lineto the base of the skull—thehair of the animal was foundgrowing several inches downon the shoulder
The life of . merous reports of these exami-nations, all of which were quite satisfactory. I am confident that the re-porters and editors who exam-ined this animal were honestlypersuaded that it was what itpurported to be—a veritablemermaid. Nor is this to bewondered at, since, if it was awork of art, the monkey andfish were so nicely conjoinedthat no human eye could de-tect the point where the junc-tion was formed. The spine ofthe fish proceeded in a straightand apparently unbroken lineto the base of the skull—thehair of the animal was foundgrowing several inches downon the shoulders of the fish,and the application of a micro-scope absolutely revealed whatseemed to be minute fish scaleslying in myriads amidst thehair. The teeth and forma-tion of the fingers and handsdiffered materially from thoseof any monkey or orang-out-ang ever discovered, while thelocation of the fins was differ-ent from those of any speciesof the fish tribe known to nat-The animal was an ugly, dried-up, black-looking, and. A CORRECT LIKENESS OF THE MERMAID Reduced in size from Sunday Herald. uralists. VON SIEBOLDS EXPLANATION. 235 diminutive specimen, about three feet long. Its mouth was open,its tail turned over, and its arms thrown up, giving it the appear-ance of having died in great agony. Assuming, what is no doubt true, that the mermaid was manu-factured, it was a most remarkable specimen of ingenuity anduntiring patience. For my own part I really had scarcely caredat the time to form an opinion of the origin of this creature, but itwas my impression that it was the work of some ingenious Japanese,Chinaman, or other eastern genius, and that it had probably beenone among the many hideous objects of Buddhist or Hindoo wor-ship. Recently, however, in reading myself up on the history of Japan,I found the following article in a work entitled Manners and Cus-toms of the Japanese in the Nineteenth Century, from the. accountsof recent Dutch residents in Japan, and from the G
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