the name of an animal of a monstrous size, supposed to have been seen at sea, in the existence of which the weakness and credulity of the fishermen have excited the belief of even respectable naturalists, and amongst 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.