Moreover, Mr.Joseph does not seem to be aware that the old Spanish Conquistadores had a myth that music was to be heard in this very Gulf of Paria, and that at certain seasons the Nymphs and Tritons assembled therein, and with ravishing strains sang their watery loves.

The story of the music has been usually treated as a sailor's fable, and the Sirens and Tritons supposed to be mere stupid manatis, or sea-cows, coming in as they do still now and then to browse on mangrove shoots and turtle-grass: {110} but if the story of the music be true, the myth may have had a double root.
Meanwhile I see Hardwicke's Science Gossip for March gives an extract from a letter of M.O.de Thoron, communicated by him to the Academie des Sciences, December 1861, which confirms Mr.Joseph's story.

He asserts that in the Bay of Pailon, in Esmeraldos, Ecuador, i.e.on the Pacific Coast, and also up more than one of the rivers, he has heard a similar sound, attributed by the natives to a fish which they call 'The Siren,' or 'Musico.' At first, he says, he thought it was produced by a fly, or hornet of extraordinary size; but afterwards, having advanced a little farther, he heard a multitude of different voices, which harmonised together, imitating a church organ to great perfection.

The good people of Trinidad believe that the fish which makes this noise is the trumpet-fish, or Fistularia--a beast strange enough in shape to be credited with strange actions: but ichthyologists say positively no: that the noise (at least along the coast of the United States) is made by a Pogonias, a fish somewhat like a great bearded perch, and cousin of the Maigre of the Mediterranean, which is accused of making a similar purring or grunting noise, which can be heard from a depth of one hundred and twenty feet, and guides the fishermen to their whereabouts.
How the noise is made is a question.

Cuvier was of opinion that it was made by the air-bladder, though he could not explain how: but the truth, if truth it be, seems stranger still.