hich of themselves are given to breed fleas and
lice; among which the chalcis, a kind of turgot, is one." Malone
suggests that the passage may mean, "breeds fleas as fast as a loach
breeds loaches;" this fish being reckoned a peculiarly prolific one. It
seems probable, however, that the carrier alludes to one of those
fanciful notions which make up a great part of natural history among the
common people.[930] At the present day there is a fisherman's fancy on
the Norfolk coast that fish and fleas come together. "Lawk, sir!" said
an old fellow, near Cromer, to a correspondent of "Notes and Queries"
(Oct. 7th, 1865), "times is as you may look in my flannel-shirt, and
scarce see a flea, and then there ain't but a very few herrin's; but
times that'll be right alive with 'em, and then there's sartin to be a
sight o' fish."

[930] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 518.

Mr. Houghton, writing in the _Academy_ (May 27th, 1882) thinks that in
the above passage the small river loach (_Cobitis barbatula_) is the
fish intended. He says, "At certain times of the year, chiefly during
the summer months, almost all fresh-water fish are liable to be
infested with some kind of Epizoa. There are two kinds of parasitic
creatures which are most commonly seen on various fish caught in the
rivers and ponds of this country; and these are the _Argulus foliaccus_,
a crustacean, and the _Piscicola piscium_, a small, cylindrical kind of
leech."

_Mermaids._ From the earliest ages mermaids have had a legendary
existence--the sirens of the ancients evidently belonging to the same
remarkable family. The orthodox mermaid is half woman, half fish, the
fishy half being sometimes depicted as _doubly_-tailed. Shakespeare
frequently makes his characters talk about mermaids, as in the "Comedy
of Errors" (iii. 2), where Antipholus of Syracuse says:

"O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears;
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote:
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I'll take them and there lie,
And, in that glorious supposition, think
He gains by death, that hath such means to die."

And, again, further on, he adds:

"I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song."

Staunton considers that in these passages the allusion is obviously to
the long-current opinion that the siren, or mermaid, decoyed mortals to
destruction by the witcher