"As the hysteria grew, so too did people's cynicism. Some made a point of defining mermaids explicitly as products of the ancient imagination. Others endeavoured to explain the phenomena away as seals, manatees or dugongs and the deceit of vision. It says something, however, that after reading so many historic descriptions of merpeople by those who claimed to have seen them, I came away from this book half-wondering whether there might indeed have been something more enticing out there in the deep. Like all great myths, tales of mermaids and mermen are self-perpetuating, becoming only more convincing in concert with one another. The more sources accumulate, the more weight they acquire, until there is nothing for it but to give in to the romance of the idea or else feel hard-nosed and disappointed. The greatest power of the scaly temptress, it would seem, is to tempt us into believing in her existence.".