The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-06-27
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FABLES OF THE SEA.
Extravagant Stories that Have Been Told
of DeuiZeus of The Deem.

The witch-hunter Bodin, in hi
Encyclopaedia of Magic, informs us tina
the last faun was caught in 1852, anC
adds that, owing to the spread of I'M
belief. fairies, nowadays. hide in dark
est cavernS;'' but it must be admitted
that quite number of marine bugbear:
and chimeras have managed to survive
the dawn of modern science.
There is a species of mollusks with
prehensile legs that can be closed like
the fingers of hand, but the difference
between the size of the geological octo
pus and the eight-arined sea-ogre Of
Victor Hugo is bout as giaring as that
between the vampire bat weight some
three ounces) and the ghoul vampire OF
Turkish folklore.
OF the thirty odd varieties of cephalo-
pods found in the seas of the tropics,
twenty-five are not much larger than
starfsh, and of the rest only three
species attain size at all formida BILE,
even in appearance, though the expan-
sion and contraction of the Shiny tenta-
cles are not pleasant sight when a
captured specimen wriggles about the
deck Of a tidy steamer. The octopus of
the northern seas is a mere peck of
Jelly, about an inch and half in
length, and quite as harmless as a
Spanish man-Of-war, rising and sink
ing in the ripple of the surf.
The elder Pliny tells some tough
stories about a creature he calls poly
pus; but even Hugo's ''devil-tish'' night
mare is outdone by the kraken yarns
of the Scandinavian sailors The ORTIZ
odox krake of the Morse fire-side tales,
according to Prof. HARRISON, was a
monster of such portentous size that
one of its tentacles protruding over the
cliffs of the sea-shore. was apt to be
mistaken for the. trunk of a stranded
tree till it suddenly rose and, twisting
about the legs of the unwary traveller.
flung him far out to sea, where the
body of the monster lay coiled up at
the bottom of marine abyss. Fisher
mems boats and even sailing vessels of
the largest size were said to have been
drawn down so suddenly that the vic
TINS had hardly time to shrek out the
name of their patron saint before the
waves closed over their heads.
A color of plausibility was supposed
to have been given to these traditions
by the fact that large-sized octopus
was washed ashore on the west coast
of Newfoundland. but subsequent in
vestigation proved that the specimen
in question was as dead as a dodo, and
had evidently been carried northward
with the current of the gulf stream.
A south sea shark power of diges-
ton can hardly be exaggerated, but
the prescriptive title of ''tyrant ot
the sea" clearly belongs to other sea-
monsters. for instance, the grampus or
lIiller-whale that will attack a walrus
with the fury of bulldog, and has
been known TO rout a whole 'rookerv'
of sea-lions The Greenland variety at
tain a length Of thirty feet and can
swallow a seal as a shark would devour
a slice of bacon, and in It's paroxvsms
Of appetite has been known to tear
large pieces of flesh out of the living
body of its large relative, the white
whale, which it sometimes kills by
driving ii into the bay of a shallow
estuary.
Not poets only. but the authors of
fiction travels. continue TO repeat the
IA bic about the color changes Of the
dying dolphin. The fact IS that the
color OF the Delphinus delphis resem- /
hles the blackish-gray hue of its cousin,
the common porpoise. and does not I'M
dergo the slightest change after death
till the skin becomes wrinkled and be-
gins 10 drop off in fakes. Something
to the phenomena of the +
poetic fiction is. however. actually apt !
to occur IN the dying agony of the cory /
phene creature as different from
dolphin as a shark is from a seal
And what a pity that even ColeridCe's /
ancient mariner should have endan- /
Cered the fate OF his messmateS by 81 1
rratuitous an outrage as the killing Of .
a stormy petre' Mother Carey's .
chicken is one of Jack Tarr's special /
pets and follows his ship farther than
any bird but the albatrcss: but az the 4
approach Of a gale il seeks the shelter
II the shore. like all other sea-birds. (
and its sudden appearance III unusual F..
mum bers or a q more than ordinary ,
distance from land Is an omen OF fair
weather rather than OF an Impending
L. Oswald. in y. Y. Ledger