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Crew memebers affirmed they had found a mermaid in their herring drift-net. 'On examining their captive, by the largeness of her breasts and the beauty of her compexion, it was found to be female, nothing could be more lovely, more exactly formed, in all parts above the waist resembling a complete young woman, but below that, all fish, with fins, and a huge spreading tail.' She was taken ashore but they could not get her to eat or drink and at the end of the third day when 'she began to look very ill with fasting,' they opened the door of the house. She then glided on her tail to the beach and plunged into the sea where she swam away surrounded by many others of her own species.
