need help finding info for school projects.

[RefractedAhav]

I need help finding resouces for two projects. The first one is a paper regarding how benefits given to illegal immigrants effects our taxes. I have tried looking for books and looking through databases on the subject, but I haven't found any thing of any real use so far. If some one could just point me in the right direction it would be greatly appretiated.

The second project compares living and extinct marine life with ancient myths and legends dealing with the sea. Could any one please let me know where there is any reliable information on this topic? A book listing mythological sea creatures as they are discribed in their orignial legends would be helpful. Also the older the legend the better. If you could name some lesser know marine life and/or legends about marine life, that would also be helpful.

[SP1]

Well, there's the Hydra. A really tiny sea creature with octopus like tentacles. Hercules slew the Hydra, a serpent beast with a lot of heads.

Bullfinch's Mythology is a big list of, well, mythology and is available in most libraries.

Then there is the Narwhale, a large porpoise size whale with a single, twisted horn. Some say this might have been confused with a horse playing in the surf (hence a unicorn).

Amazon.com has this one that might help:

Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth (Paperback) by Carol Rose. 2001.

[Technomancer]

Adrienne Mayor's "The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times" is one book you might want to consider looking at. It mostly focusses on terrestrial species, but it does give a good discussion of how they figured into local mythologies.

[RefractedAhav]

Thanks, I look into the books both of you mentioned.

[Dante]

Hmm... Not a biologist but I do know that there do exist giant squids from legends, and they are rather big too. But not nerely as dangerous... In fact they're not even extint. But these are the only ones that I have knowledge of.

[Kaori]

A Medieval bestiary might be helpful, if your library has one; I believe these usually contain mythological creatures as well as real animals. If fairy tales are acceptable, both the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Anderson have tellings of the Little Mermaid story. You might want to look into the myth of Scylla and Charybdis, which is found in the Oddysey (a shortened version can probably be found in either Bullfinch's or Edith Hamilton's Mythology.) I also vaguely recall Kelpies and Kraken being mythological marine creatures, although I don't know enough about either of them to direct you to a source for those myths.

[Theoglaphore]

One really good source for this is the Bible. Look into Job 40:15-40:24. Three creatures that you may do some research into are the Behemoth, the Leviathan, and the Rahab (not to be confused with the person mentioned in the Bible). The Leviathan was specificaly a water creature, I am not sure of the other two in terms of non-Biblical legends. I hope this helps out.