Note 57 — QUEER FISH.

Take Captain Edward Haies’ description of a sea-lion in his narrative of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Voyage: “So upon Saturday in the afternoon, August 31, we changed our course, and returned back for England; at which very instant, even in winding about, there passed along between us and toward the land, which we now forsook, a very lion, to our seeming in shape, hair, and colour; not swimming after the manner of a beast, by moving of his feet, but rather sliding upon the water with his whole body. Thus he passed along, turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide, with ugly demonstration of long teeth and glaring eyes, and to bid us a farewell (coming right against the Hinde) he sent forth a horrible voice, roaring and bellowing as doth a lion, which spectacle we all beheld, so far as we were able to discern the same, as men prone to wonder at every strange thing, as this doubtless was, to see a lion in the ocean sea, or fish in shape of a lion; what opinion others had thereof, and chiefly the General himself, I forbear to deliver, but he took it for bonum omen, rejoicing that he was to war against such an enemy, if it were the devil.”—Hakluyt’s “Voyages,” vol. iii. p. 154.