FOR THE GIRLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 14 (Supplement)

FOR THE GIRLS.

MODERN MERMAIDS. HAVE YOU SEEN ONE ? My Dear Girls, — You may not think it, but mermaids are creatures of fact at well as of fiction. More, they actually do live at the bottom of the deep blae sea, come up at intervals to breathe, and play about on top of, the water. They are the dugongs, natives of the Indian ocean and its surrounding BCaS These strange creatures have given rise to the belief of fish-tailed women, for they have a startling and extraordinary likeness to a combined human and fishlike form. They are not fish but mammals, and suckle their young. They have ordinary lungs and cannot therefore remain under wateir indefinitely. , . .. These queer creatures breathe through nostrils at the end of a muzzle. Their heads are sleek and rounded, and their forepaws, by means of which they raise their food to their mouths in a human-like manner, are long and flexible. A mother dugong with a baby holds it to her breast with one flipper and swims with the other, keeping the heads of both above the water. Such a sight was quite enough to make an old. time windjammer sailor ready to take his oath he had seen a mermaid. Native to the coast of Sumatra is a species of dugong similar to the former, which in addition utters a short, sharp, pitiful cry like a human being in pain, and is also reported to shed tears. The Malays are sup. posed to preserve there tears as a charm to secure love and affection, and they hold the creature in suspicious awe, which is not surprising. A similar animal, inhabiting fresh instead of salt water, is found on the coast of tropical America. It is called "manatee," or sea cow, and often grows to a length of 15 or 20 feet. It is a vegetarian and haunts the shallow bays and estuaries of rivers. Unfortunately they are not often seen now, for, like the dugong, the manatee has been hunted almost to extinction, but a school of them is protected in the Miami River, in Florida. The sea cow, too, is remarkable for the affection it displays towards its young, and for the almost human manner in which the mother embraces her baby. Well I'm glad they have left us a mermaid or two, for there is always a lure about a sea romance. As I write some lines come to me from a favourite poem I learned at school called "The Forsaken Merman,"' Only I shall write it like prose, because it is such a bother for Mr. Printer to set up too much poetry. A merman once fell in love with a mortal maiden, who married him but could not be happy on "her red gold throne in the heart of the sea," so she deserted her merman and her children. She rose up through the surf and never came back. We hear the merman talking to his children as they are gazing sadly towards the little town where she has gone. "Come dear childen, let us away. Down and away below. Now the salt tides seaward flow, and wild white horses play champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Call her once before you go, call once yet in a voice sho will know, Margaret! Margaret! Children's voices should be dear. Surely she will come again. Call her once, and come away. One last look at the white-walled town, and the little church on the windy shore. Then come down, she will not come tho* you call I | all day." , , % . But there is no room for more. It is fascinat- F J ingly told and you mu6t read it for yourselves, tyS "The Forsaken Merman," by Matthew Arnold.