Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/369

 Animal Myths and their Origin. 37

from the husband of the mermaid. There is a myth in Japan, 1 founded upon history, that a princess went into the mountains to care for the silk-worms, and finally her body itself became meta- morphosed into such larvas. In Japan it is supposed that the snake and the tortoise are converted into one another.

Through eleven learned chapters, Sir Thomas Browne 2 discourses on the causes of common errors, from " the common infirmity of human nature, and the erroneous disposition of the people," "false deduction," " credulity and supinity," " obstinate adherence unto antiquity" and " unto authority," to "the last and great promoter of false opinions, the endeavours of Satan." All folk-lorists will agree with the sagacious author of the Pseudodoxia epidcmica in the terms of his diagnosis except, perhaps, as to the last one. Three centuries of growth have for the most of us placed his Satanic Ma- jesty within the mythic shades so congenial to his soul, where his chief occupation, whatever else it may be, is scarcely the promotion of " false opinions " among the descendants of Pithecanthropus. Even among modern zoologists, discoveries amounting to veritable cases of heterogenesis have been gravely recorded. As an example of caution to such enthusiasts is the procedure of Dallinger, 3 who once observed a totally different infusorian AmpJiihptus emerge from the bell of a Vorticella, and swim away. In a few years this zoologist happened to see the first-mentioned infusorian eat up a bell- animalcule and then encyst itself within the bell. Thus a hasty theory upon the first observation would have created a case of heter- ogenesis from a phenomenon which later discovery showed to be perfectly natural and easily explained.

Let us turn now to some zoological myths which, while possibly to be regarded as twigs from the wide-branching Aryan tree, still have the appearance, at least of rebirth, in our own times, in answer to that human curiosity which would wrest from every natural phenomenon the secret cause of its being. The fishermen of the west coast of Sweden fancy that the "jelly-fish " are the mothers of the herring. The late Dr. A. W. Malon, 4 superintendent of the fisheries of that coast, decided to find out what had suggested to them such a quaint idea. Allowing his boat to float among the jelly-fish when the water was perfectly quiet, he saw several fishes of the species Motella argeuteola swimming among the Medusae. Often one of the fish would dart into the stomach of a jelly-fish, where it seemed to feel perfectly at home, while the temporary host was not in the least disturbed by this visitor going in and out of its stomach at will.

1 Mrs. Etsu I. Sugimoto. 2 L. c.

3 Parker, Elementary Biology, p. 103, 1891.

4 From Dr. Josua Lindahl.

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