In his Addenda et Emendanda, he gives, on the authority of Olaus Magnus, a picture of an unnamed Whale—he says it was of great size, and had terrible teeth.
He also gives us two or three curious pictures of now extinct Cetaceans, something like terrestrial animals or men. And the first is a Leonine Monster, and for its authority he quotes Rondeletius.
This creature had none of its parts fitted to act as a marine animal of prey, but he says that Gisbertus (Horstius) Germanus, a physician at Rome, certifies that
it was taken on the high seas, not long before the death of Pope Paul III., which took place A.D. 1549. It was of the size and shape of a Lion, it had four feet, not mutilated, or imperfect as those of the Seal, and not joined together as is the case with the beaver or duck, but perfect, and divided into toes with nails: a long thin tail ending in hair; ears hardly visible, and its body covered with scales—but he adds that Gisbertus found fault with the artist, who had made the feet longer than they ought to have been—and the ears too large for an aquatic animal.
Gesner also gives us (and so does Aldrovandus) pictures of the Monk and Bishop fishes. The Monk-fish, he says, was caught off Norway, in a troubled sea: and he quotes Bœothius as describing a similar monster found in the Firth of Forth. The Bishop-fish was only seen off the coast of Poland, A.D. 1531.
The existence of these marine monsters had, at all
events, very wide credence, even if they never existed, for Sluper, whom I have before quoted, gives, in his curious little book, two pictures of these two fishes (more awful than Gesner did). Of the Sea Monk he says: