It was only with difficulty that their lives were saved, as Chowpahyi, the reigning king, had a superstition that such freaks of nature always presaged evil to the country.

They were really discovered by Robert Hunter, a British merchant at Bangkok, who in 1824 saw them boating and stripped to the waist.

He prevailed on the parents and King Chowpahyi to allow them to go away for exhibition.

They were first taken out of the country by a certain Captain Coffin.

The first scientific description of them was given by Professor J.C.Warren, who examined them in Boston, at the Harvard University, in 1829.