Frank Buckland, the famous Natural Historian, described a
merman that had been exhibited in London [1] as having been made by fusing the
torso of a monkey to the body of a fish, most likely a hake, with some
additions to add effect. Exhibits of mermen and mermaids were popular in the
Nineteenth Century, but they were always advertised more enthusiastically than
their reality was worth. They were, of necessity, shrivelled and dry and quite different
to the many exotic living creatures that could be viewed in Zoological Gardens
and Aquaria and which were brought back from expeditions to many parts of the
World, such a feature of the time.
After describing the merman and a mermaid, Buckland
introduces us to another preserved creature, the Nondescript (shown above and
not to be confused with the object of the same name created by Charles Waterton
[2]). Buckland describes "his" Nondescript in Curiosities of Natural History (the creature was part of the zoological
collection he kept in his home) [3]:
The Nondescript is about as big as
a baby three months old, and as a crusty bachelor friend said, "really
very much like one."
He has wings on the top of his
shoulder like the old army aigulettes, and there are claws on the tips and on
the extreme ends of each wing: these wings are so artfully contrived that one
would believe they could be opened out and unfurled like a bat's wing at any
moment the creature that carried it wished to take a fly a either for business
or amusement.
The arms are amazingly human-like,
and look as though the dried skin had shrunk fast on to the bone; the legs also
represent a similar appearance. The hands and feet are demon-like, and of a
long, scraggy, merciless appearance, and each finger and toe is armed with a formidable-looking
claw. The ribs project frightfully, as though the nondescript had lately been
living for some time à la malcontent. The head is
about as big as a very large apple. The ears project outwards and downwards,
like those of an African elephant. The face is wrinkled and deformed; the nose
like a pig’s snout; the eyes like those of a codfish; the teeth exactly the
same as those in the mermaid.. – double rows in each jaw, with protruding fangs
in front; and surmounting this hideous countenance, a rough shock of
fine-wool-like hair..
From this description, and from the illustration, it is difficult
to imagine that anyone could believe that this had been a living
creature. The appearance of the Nondescript mirrored that of illustrations
of devils, compounded by the addition of wings that were very similar
to those of bats, animals that have an unfortunate, and undeserved, reputation
[4]. Anyone with biological knowledge would be immediately suspicious on seeing
that wings and arms were both present, as we know that the latter developed
from, and replaced, the ancestral fore-limbs in both bats and birds. Those dedicated to
the many images of angels (that have both wings and arms) would maybe have been
less worried by this detail and the Nondescript was clearly designed to
represent an "evil angel".
After Frank Buckland had acquired the Nondescript to add to
his collection, he was able to examine it in more detail and this is what he
found [3]:
Everybody said that there must be
bones in the arms and the legs and ribs. I soon tested this with a surgical
exploring needle [Buckland was trained as a surgeon], but found no bone, or
anything like a bone, but simply soft wood, probably cedar. I made several
incisions in the Nondescript’s body, and found that the main portion of his
composition was (like the legs) a light wood. The skin, as well as the wings,
are made of a species of papier-mâché,
most artfully put on in wrinkles, and admirably coloured and shaded to give the
appearance of the dried body of some creature that had once existed either on
land or sea – had been slain – and then preserved as a curiosity.
As Buckland's Nondescript was one of many, most probably produced
in Japan, the wings could be those of an oriental fruit bat and he must have
considered, and dismissed, that possibility. As an army officer, Buckland must also have been intrigued by the insertion
of the wings “like old army aigulettes” (see an image of these accessories
below) and how this presents challenges to understanding how they might have
been used in flight. It’s the same problem for anyone trying to understand how
angels flap their wings, of course [5].
Belief in the Nondescript,
comes from our ability to suspend a rational approach. In a fairground, with poor
lighting and with a barker to stress the importance of the creature, one can
easily see how people could be taken in and believe the Nondescript to have
been a real creature. A cynic might suggest that religion has its equivalent of
barkers in getting us to believe in images of angels, although there are no
remains of angels for us to examine. That is not to say that these heavenly beings cannot
exist; rather that they are supernatural and yet have been shown as physical
beings in paintings and sculpture. Is it fair to make that comparison?
[3] Francis T Buckland (1866) Curiosities of Natural History. A New Series Volume II. London,
Richard Bentley.
[5] Roger S. Wotton (2009) Angels, putti, dragons and
fairies: believing the impossible. Opticon1826
7:1-7.
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