the name of an animal supposed to have been seen at sea, of a monstrous size, in the existence of which the weakness and credulity of the fishermen have excited the belief even among respectable naturalists, and among others Bishop Pontoppidan, who describes it in his Natural History of Norway. It is probable that the whole depends on certain optical appearances arising from a peculiar state of the atmosphere, which thus exhibits to the deluded fancy something of the form of a huge animal.