History of Monsters. 351

...they deviate more from their natural origin. Monsters that survive, however, differ less from their natural state. This raises another question: why are monstrous miscarriages rare if, as previously explained, monsters growing in the womb become increasingly weak with each passing day? Cardanus offers an excellent answer: since miscarriages are generally rare, and monsters are rarer still, it follows that the miscarriage of a monster is exceptionally infrequent. Finally, people often ask why Egyptian women give birth to monsters more often than others. Cardanus suggests this happens because Egyptian women frequently bear multiple children in a single birth; consequently, due to either weakness or the jostling of the fetuses, the offspring easily deviate from their proper nature.

Next, we ask why small quadrupeds often produce monsters, while this rarely happens in humans and large animals. Aristotle solves this problem by asserting the primary cause: small animals conceive many offspring at the same time, whereas larger ones usually conceive and bear only one. Monsters tend to be created where many seeds mingle and merge together, which occurs more frequently in small animals carrying multiple fetuses. Furthermore, it is often asked which type of animal produces the most monsters. Many respond that this honor belongs to aquatic creatures—not only because many believe that the forms of all land and air animals are also found in the water, but also because we believe it suits them due to the soft nature of their matter and excessive moisture, which can easily cause the generation and constitution of the animal to become corrupted, fouled, or deformed.

However, these aquatic monsters are less known to us, as many species of such animals remain unfamiliar due to their dwellings being far removed from our senses. Nevertheless, I have chosen to present several images of aquatic monsters here to support the opinion of those who claim that new monsters are discovered in the waters every day. From this, we can conclude that the Ancients were justified in naming the monstrous Harpies the daughters of Neptune, considering the Ocean to be the parent of all wonders and portents. The first illustration is of a monstrous Carp, reported to have been caught in an Austrian river called the Thaya in the domain of Count Julius von Hardegg, near the city of Retz, in October 1545. This Carp was monstrous because it did not possess the usual appearance of its kind (discussed in the *History of Fishes*), but instead bore a human likeness. It was caught alone in a net and, because of its rarity—and especially because it was unknown to the elders of the region—it was preserved for a long time and carried about as a kind of miracle.

In the second place, we provide the image of a monstrous Sea-Pig, which Gessner called a "cetacean hyena" due to its resemblance to a pig or a four-legged hyena. According to Olaus Magnus, this creature was caught near the northern island of Thule in the year 1538. It had a pig's head but the rest of its body was scaly, featuring a shape like a crescent moon on its back and three eyes on each side of its middle. The animal was of almost unbelievable size, measuring seventy-two feet in length and fourteen feet in height. The space between its eyes was seven feet, and it had a liver so vast that it filled five barrels.

Third, some monsters from the Nile are added to confirm what has been said so far. Images of these should have been placed on page 26 of this book where they were mentioned. They possess a clearly human appearance down to the waist, with faces composed in a grave expression, yellowish hair interspersed with some grey hairs, a bony stomach, and distinct, jointed arms; however, after this human-like portion, the monster ends in a fish tail. There was another with a woman’s face, long hair, and swelling breasts, just as the illustration shows. Furthermore, to strengthen the opinion of those who believe there are more monsters in the water than on land, we include the image of a sea monster described by Paré, with the head, hair, and chest of a horse, and the rest of its body shaped like a fish. Gessner records that this was caught in the Ocean, brought to Rome, and presented to the Supreme Pontiff.