“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.

Some Catholics, in consequence of the John Doree having a dark spot, like a finger-mark, on each side of the head, believe this to have been the fish, and not the Haddock, from which the Apostle Peter took the tribute-money, by order of our Saviour.  The modern Greeks denominate it “the fish of St. Christopher,” from a legend which relates that it was trodden on by that saint, when he bore his divine burden across an arm of the sea.  Some species of Echini, fossilized, and seen frequently in Norfolk, are termed by the ignorant peasantry, and considered, Fairy Loaves, to take which, when found, is highly unlucky.