"He is quite right," I said.  "I have heard of this picture; but the
subject represented is taken from a legend, and you know know what
to think of legends in the matter of natural history.  Besides, when
it is a question of monsters, the imagination is apt to run wild.
Not only is it supposed that these polyps can draw down vessels, but
but a certain Olaus Magnus speaks of an octopus a mile long that is
more like an island than an animal.  It is also said that the Bishop
of Nidros was building an altar on an immense rock.  Mass finished,
the rock began to walk, and returned to the sea.  The rock was a
polyp.  Another Bishop Bishop, Pontoppidan, speaks also of a polyp
on which a regiment of cavalry could manoeuvre.  Lastly, the ancient
naturalists speak of monsters whose mouths were like gulfs, and
which were too large to pass through the the Straits of Gibraltar."