“We ought to make up our minds to dismiss as idle prejudices, or, at least, suspend as premature, any preconceived notion of what might, or what ought to, be the order of nature, and content ourselves with observing, as a plain matter of fact, what is.”—Sir J. Herschel, “Prelim. Disc.” page 79.

The fancies of men have peopled three of the four so-called elements, earth, air, water, and fire, with strange forms of life, and have even found in the salamander an inhabitant for the fourth. On land the centaur and the unicorn, in the air the dragon and the roc, in the water tritons and mermaids, may be named as instances among many of the fabulous creatures which have been not only imagined but believed in by men of old times. Although it may be doubted whether men have ever invented any absolutely imaginary forms of life, yet the possibility of combining known forms into imaginary, and even impossible, forms, must be admitted as an important element in any inquiry into the origin of ideas respecting such creatures as I have named. One need only look through an illuminated manuscript of the Middle Ages to recognize the readiness with which imaginary creatures can be formed by combining, or by exaggerating, the characteristics of known animals. Probably the combined knowledge and genius of all the greatest zoologists of our time would not suffice for the invention of an entirely new form of animal which yet should be zoologically possible; but to combine the qualities of several existent animals in a single one, or to conceive an200 animal with some peculiarity abnormally developed, is within the capacity of persons very little acquainted with zoology, nay, is perhaps far easier to such persons than it would be to an Owen, a Huxley, or a Darwin. In nearly every case, however, the purely imaginary being is to be recognized by the utter impossibility of its actual existence. If it be a winged man, arms and wings are both provided, but the pectoral muscles are left unchanged. A winged horse, in like manner, is provided with wings, without any means of working them. A centaur, as in the noble sculptures of Phidias, has the upper part of the trunk of a man superadded, not to the hind quarters of a horse or other quadruped, but to the entire trunk of such an animal, so that the abdomen of the human figure lies between the upper half of the human trunk and the corresponding part of the horse’s trunk, an arrangement anatomically preposterous. Without saying that every fabulous animal which was anatomically and zoologically possible, had a real antitype, exaggerated though the fabulous form may have been, we must yet admit that errors so gross marked the conception of all the really imaginary animals of antiquity, that any fabulous animal found to accord fairly well with zoological possibilities may be regarded, with extreme probability, as simply the exaggerated presentation of some really existent animal. The inventors of centaurs, winged and man-faced bulls, many-headed dogs, harpies, and so forth, were utterly unable to invent a possible new animal, save by the merest chance, the probability of which was so small that it may fairly be disregarded.

This view of the so-called fabulous animals of antiquity has been confirmed by the results of modern zoological research. The merman, zoologically possible (not in all details, of course, but generally), has found its antitype in the dugong and the manatee; the roc in the condor, or perhaps in those extinct species whose bones attest their monstrous proportions; the unicorn in the rhinoceros; even the dragon in the pterodactyl of the green-sand; while the201 centaur, the minotaur, the winged horse, and so forth, have become recognized as purely imaginary creatures, which had their origin simply in the fanciful combination of known forms, no existent creatures having even suggested these monstrosities.

It is not to be wondered at that the sea should have been more prolific in monstrosities and in forms whose real nature has been misunderstood. Land animals cannot long escape close observation. Even the most powerful and ferocious beasts must succumb in the long run to man, and in former ages, when the struggle was still undecided between some race of animals and savage man, individual specimens of the race must often have been killed, and the true appearance of the animal determined. Powerful winged animals might for a longer time remain comparatively mysterious creatures even to those whom they attacked, or whose flocks they ravaged. A mighty bird, or a pterodactylian creature (a late survivor of a race then fast dying out), might swoop down on his prey and disappear with it too swiftly to be made the subject of close scrutiny, still less of exact scientific observation. Yet the general characteristics even of such creatures would before long be known. From time to time the strange winged monster would be seen hovering over the places where his prey was to be found. Occasionally it would be possible to pierce one of the race with an arrow or a javelin; and thus, even in those remote periods when the savage progenitors of the present races of man had to carry on a difficult contest with animals now extinct or greatly reduced in power, it would become possible to determine accurately the nature of the winged enemy. But with sea creatures, monstrous, or otherwise, the case would be very different. To this day we remain ignorant of much that is hidden beneath the waves of the “hollow-sounding and mysterious main.” Of far the greater number of sea creatures, it may truly be said that we never see any specimens except by accident, and never obtain the body of any except by very rare accident. Those creatures of the202 deep sea which we are best acquainted with, are either those which are at once very numerous and very useful as food or in some other way, or else those which are very rapacious and thus expose themselves, by their attacks on men, to counter-attack and capture or destruction. In remote times, when men were less able to traverse the wide seas, when, on the one hand, attacks from great sea creatures were more apt to be successful, while, on the other, counter-attack was much more dangerous, still less would be known about the monsters of the deep. Seen only for a few moments as he seized his prey, and then sinking back into the depths, a sea monster would probably remain a mystery even to those who had witnessed his attack, while their imperfect account of what they had seen would be modified at each repetition of the story, until there would remain little by which the creature could be identified, even if at some subsequent period its true nature were recognized. We can readily understand, then, that among the fabulous creatures of antiquity, even of those which represented actually existent races incorrectly described, the most remarkable, and those zoologically the least intelligible, would be the monsters of the deep sea. We can also understand that even the accounts which originally corresponded best with the truth would have undergone modifications much more noteworthy than those affecting descriptions of land animals or winged creatures—simply because there would be small chance of any errors thus introduced being corrected by the study of freshly discovered specimens.

We may, perhaps, explain in this way the strange account given by Berosus of the creature which came up from the Red Sea, having the body of a fish but the front and head of a man. We may well believe that this animal was no other than a dugong, or halicore (a word signifying sea-maiden), a creature inhabiting the Indian Ocean to this day, and which might readily find its way into the Red Sea. But the account of the creature has been strangely altered from the original narrative, if at least the original narrative was correct. For,203 according to Berosus, the animal had two human feet which projected from each side of the tail; and, still stranger, it had a human voice and human language. “This strange monster sojourned among the rude people during the day, taking no food, but retiring to the sea again at night, and continued for some time teaching them the arts of civilized life.” A picture of this stranger is said to have been preserved at Babylon for many centuries. With a probable substratum of truth, the story in its latest form is as fabulous as Autolycus’s “ballad of a fish that appeared upon the coast, on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathoms above water, and sang a ballad against the hard hearts of maids.”

It is singular, by the way, how commonly the power of speech, or at least of producing sounds resembling speech or musical notes, was attributed to the creature which imagination converted into a man-fish or woman-fish. Dugongs and manatees make a kind of lowing noise, which could scarcely be mistaken under ordinary conditions for the sound of the human voice. Yet, not only is this peculiarity ascribed to the mermaid and siren (the merman and triton having even the supposed power of blowing on conch-shells), but in more recent accounts of encounters with creatures presumably of the seal tribe and allied races, the same feature is to be noticed. The following account, quoted by Mr. Gosse from a narrative by Captain Weddell, the well-known geographer, is interesting for this reason amongst others. It also illustrates well the mixture of erroneous details (the offspring, doubtless, of an excited imagination) with the correct description of a sea creature actually seen:—“A boat’s crew were employed on Hall’s Island, when one of the crew, left to take care of some produce, saw an animal whose voice was musical. The sailor had lain down, and at ten o’clock he heard a noise resembling human cries, and as daylight in these latitudes never disappears at this season” (the Antarctic summer), “he rose and looked around, but, on seeing no person, returned to bed. Presently he heard204 the noise again; he rose a second time, but still saw nothing. Conceiving, however, the possibility of a boat being upset, and that some of the crew might be clinging to detached rocks, he walked along the beach a few steps and heard the noise more distinctly but in a musical strain. Upon searching around, he saw an object lying on a rock a dozen yards from the shore, at which he was somewhat frightened. The face and shoulders appeared of human form and of a reddish colour; over the shoulders hung long green hair; the tail resembled that of the seal, but the extremities of the arms he could not see distinctly. The creature continued to make a musical noise while he gazed about two minutes, and on perceiving him it disappeared in an instant. Immediately, when the man saw his officer, he told this wild tale, and to add weight to his testimony (being a Romanist) he made a cross on the sand, which he kissed, as making oath to the truth of his statement. When I saw him he told the story in so clear and positive a manner, making oath to its truth, that I concluded he must really have seen the animal he described, or that it must have been the effects of a disturbed imagination.”

In this story all is consistent with the belief that the sailor saw an animal belonging to the seal family (of a species unknown to him), except the green hair. But the hour was not very favourable to the discerning of colour, though daylight had not quite passed away, and as Gosse points out, since golden-yellow fur and black fur are found among Antarctic seals, the colours may be intermingled in some individuals, producing an olive-green tint, which, by contrast with the reddish skin, might be mistaken for a full green. Considering that the man had been roused from sleep and was somewhat frightened, he would not be likely to make very exact observations. It will be noticed that it was only at first that he mistook the sounds made by the creature for human cries; afterwards he heard only the same noise, but in a musical strain. Now with regard to the musical sounds said to have been uttered by this creature,205 and commonly attributed to creatures belonging to families closely allied to the seals, I do not know that any attempt has yet been made to show that these families possess the power of emitting sounds which can properly be described as musical. It is quite possible that the Romanist sailor’s ears were not very nice, and that any sound softer than a bellow seemed musical to him. Still, the idea suggests itself that possibly seals, like some other animals, possess a note not commonly used, but only as a signal to their mates, and never uttered when men or other animals are known to be near. It appears to me that this is rendered probable by the circumstance that seals are fond of music. Darwin refers to this in his treatise on Sexual Selection (published with his “Descent of Man”), and quotes a statement to the effect that the fondness of seals for music “was well known to the ancients, and is often taken advantage of by hunters to the present day.” The significance of this will be understood from Darwin’s remark immediately following, that “with all these animals, the males of which during the season of courtship incessantly produce musical notes or mere rhythmical sounds, we must believe that the females are able to appreciate them.”

The remark about the creature’s arms seems strongly to favour the belief that the sailor intended his narrative to be strictly truthful. Had he wished to excite the interest of his comrades by a marvellous story, he certainly would have described the creature as having well-developed human hands.

Less trustworthy by far seem some of the stories which have been told of animals resembling the mermaid of antiquity. It must always be remembered, however, that in all probability we know very few among the species of seals and allied races, and that some of these species may present, in certain respects and perhaps at a certain age, much closer resemblance to the human form than the sea-lion, seal, manatee, or dugong.

We cannot, for instance, attach much weight to the following206 story related by Hudson, the famous navigator:—“One of our company, looking overboard, saw a mermaid and calling up some of the company to see her, one more came up, and by that time she was come close to the ship’s side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after a sea came and overturned her. From the navel upward her back and breasts were like a woman’s, as they say that saw her; her body as big as one of us; her skin very white; and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black. In her going down they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a porpoise and speckled like a mackerel.” If Hudson himself had seen and thus described the creature it would have been possible to regard the story with some degree of credence; but his account of what Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner, men about whose character for veracity we know nothing, said they saw, is of little weight. The skin very white, and long hair hanging down behind, are especially suspicious features of the narrative; and were probably introduced to dispose of the idea, which others of the crew may have advanced, that the creature was only some kind of seal after all. The female seal (Phoca Greenlandica is the pretty name of the animal) is not, however, like the male, tawny grey, but dusky white, or yellowish straw-colour, with a tawny tint on the back. The young alone could be called “very white.” They are so white in fact as scarcely to be distinguishable when lying on ice and snow, a circumstance which, as Darwin considers, serves as a protection for these little fellows.

The following story, quoted by Gosse from Dr. Robert Hamilton’s able “History of the Whales and Seals,” compares favourably in some respects with the last narrative:—“It was reported that a fishing-boat off the island of Yell, one of the Shetland group, had captured a mermaid by its getting entangled in the lines! The statement is, that the animal is about three feet long, the upper part of the body resembling the human, with protuberant mamm? like a woman; the face, the forehead, and neck, were short, and resembling207 those of a monkey; the arms, which were small, were kept folded across the breast; the fingers were distinct, not webbed; a few stiff long bristles were on the top of the head, extending down to the shoulders, and these it could erect and depress at pleasure, something like a crest. The inferior part of the body was like a fish. The skin was smooth and of a grey colour. It offered no resistance, nor attempted to bite, but uttered a low, plaintive sound. The crew, six in number, took it within their boat; but superstition getting the better of curiosity, they carefully disentangled it from the lines and a hook which had accidentally fastened in the body, and returned it to its native element. It instantly dived, descending in a perpendicular direction.” “They had the animal for three hours within the boat; the body was without scales or hair; of a silvery grey colour above, and white below, like the human skin; no gills were observed, nor fins on the back or belly. The tail was like that of the dog-fish; the mamm? were about as large as those of a woman; the mouth and lips were very distinct, and resembled the human.”

This account, if accepted in all its details, would certainly indicate that an animal of some species before unknown had been captured. But it is doubtful how much reliance can be placed on the description of the animal. Mr. Gosse, commenting upon the case, says that the fishermen cannot have been affected by fear in such sort that their imagination exaggerated the resemblance of the creature to the human form. “For the mermaid,” he says, “is not an object of terror to the fishermen; it is rather a welcome guest, and danger is to be apprehended only from its experiencing bad treatment.” But then this creature had not been treated as a specially welcome guest. The crew had captured it; and probably not without some degree of violence; for though it offered no resistance it uttered a plaintive cry. And that hook which “had accidentally fastened in the body” has a very suspicious look. If the animal could have given its own account of the capture, probably the hook208 would not have been found to have fastened in the body altogether by accident. Be this as it may, the fishermen were so far frightened that superstition got the better of curiosity; so that, as they were evidently very foolish fellows, their evidence is scarcely worth much. There are, however, only two points in their narrative which do not seem easily reconciled with the belief that they had captured a rather young female of a species closely allied to the common seal—the distinct unwebbed fingers and the small arms folded across the breast. Other points in their description suggest marked differences in degree from the usual characteristics of the female seal; but these two alone seem to differ absolutely in kind. Considering all the circumstances of the narrative, we may perhaps agree with Mr. Gosse to this extent, that, combined with other statements, the story induces a strong suspicion that the northern seas may hold forms of life as yet uncatalogued by science.

The stories which have been related about monstrous cuttle-fish have only been fabulous in regard to the dimensions which they have attributed to these creatures. Even in this respect it has been shown, quite recently, that some of the accounts formerly regarded as fabulous fell even short of the truth. Pliny relates, for instance, that the body of a monstrous cuttle-fish, of a kind known on the Spanish coast, weighed, when captured, 700 lbs., the head the same, the arms being 30 feet in length. The entire weight would probably have amounted to about 2000 lbs. But we shall presently see that this weight has been largely exceeded by modern specimens. It was, however, in the Middle Ages that the really fabulous cuttle-fish flourished—the gigantic kraken, “liker an island than an animal,” according to credulous Bishop Pontoppidan, and able to destroy in its mighty arms the largest galleons and war ships of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

It is natural that animals really monstrous should be magnified by the fears of those who have seen or encountered them, and still further magnified afterwards by tradition.209 Some specimens of cuttle-fish which have been captured wholly, or in part, indicate that this creature sometimes attains such dimensions that but little magnifying would be needed to suggest even the tremendous proportions of the fabulous kraken. In 1861, the French war-steamer Alecton encountered a monstrous cuttle, on the surface of the sea, about 120 miles north-east of Teneriffe. The crew succeeded in slipping a noose round the body, but unfortunately the rope slipped, and, being arrested by the tail fin, pulled off the tail. This was hauled on board, and found to weigh over 40 lbs. From a drawing of the animal, the total length without the arms was estimated at 50 feet, and the weight at 4000 lbs., nearly twice the weight of Pliny’s monstrous cuttle-fish, long regarded as fabulous. In one respect this creature seems to have been imperfect, the two long arms usually possessed by cuttle-fish of the kind being wanting. Probably it had lost these long tentacles in a recent encounter with some sea enemy, perhaps one of its own species. Quite possibly it may have been such recent mutilation which exposed this cuttle-fish to successful attack by the crew of the Alecton.

A cuttle-fish of about the same dimensions was encountered by two fishermen in 1873, in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. When they attacked it, the creature threw its long arms across the boat, but the fishermen with an axe cut off these tentacles, on which the cephalopod withdrew in some haste. One of the arms was preserved, after it had lost about 6 feet of its length. Even thus reduced it measured 19 feet; and as the fishermen estimate that the arm was struck off about 10 feet from the body, it follows that the entire length of the limb must have been about 35 feet. They estimated the body at 60 feet in length and 5 feet in diameter—a monstrous creature! It was fortunate for these fishermen that they had an axe handy for its obtrusive tentacles, as with so great a mass and the great propulsive power possessed by all cephalopods, it might readily have upset their small boat. Once in the water, they would have210 been at the creature’s mercy—a quality which, by all accounts, the cuttle-fish does not possess to any remarkable extent.

Turn we, however, from the half fabulous woman-fish, and the exaggeratedly monstrous cuttle-fish, to the famous sea-serpent, held by many to be the most utterly fabulous of all fabled creatures, while a few, including some naturalists of distinction, stoutly maintain that the creature has a real existence, though whether it be rightly called a sea-serpent or not is a point about which even believers are extremely doubtful.

It may be well, in the first place, to remark that in weighing the evidence for and against the existence of this creature, and bearing on the question of its nature (if its existence be admitted), we ought not to be influenced by the manifest falsity of a number of stories relating to supposed encounters with this animal. It is probable that, but for these absurd stories, the well-authenticated narratives relating to the creature, whatever it may be, which has been called the sea-serpent, would have received much more attention than has heretofore been given to them. It is also possible that some narratives would have been published which have been kept back from the fear lest a truthful (though possibly mistaken) account should be classed with the undoubted untruths which have been told respecting the great sea-serpent. It cannot be denied that in the main the inventions and hoaxes about the sea-serpent have come chiefly from American sources. It is unfortunately supposed by too many of the less cultured sons of America that (to use Mr. Gosse’s expression) “there is somewhat of wit in gross exaggerations or hoaxing inventions.” Of course an American gentleman—using the word “in that sense in which every man may be a gentleman,” as Twemlow hath it—would as soon think of uttering a base coin as a deliberate untruth or foolish hoax. But it is thought clever, by not a few in America who know no better, to take any one in by an invention. Some, perhaps but a small number, of the newspapers211 set a specially bad example in this respect, giving room in their columns for pretended discoveries in various departments of science, elaborate accounts of newly discovered animals, living or extinct, and other untruths which would be regarded as very disgraceful indeed by English editors. Such was the famous “lunar hoax,” published in the New York Sun some forty years ago; such the narrative, in 1873, of a monstrous fissure which had been discerned in the body of the moon, and threatened to increase until the moon should be cloven into two unequal parts; such the fables which have from time to time appeared respecting the sea-serpent. But it would be as unreasonable to reject, because of these last-named fables, the narratives which have been related by quiet, truth-loving folk, and have borne close and careful scrutiny, as it would be to reject the evidence given by the spectroscope respecting the existence of iron and other metals in the sun because an absurd story had told how creatures in the moon had been observed to make use of metal utensils or to adorn the roofs of their temples with metallic imitations of wreathed flames.

The oldest accounts on record of the appearance of a great sea creature resembling a serpent are those quoted by Bishop Pontoppidan, in his description of the natural history of his native country, Norway. Amongst these was one confirmed by oath taken before a magistrate by two of the crew of a ship commanded by Captain de Ferry, of the Norwegian navy. The captain and eight men saw the animal, near Molde, in August, 1747. They described it as of the general form of a serpent, stretched on the surface in receding coils (meaning, probably, the shape assumed by the neck of a swan when the head is drawn back). The head, which resembled that of a horse, was raised two feet above the water.

In August, 1817, a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, was seen near Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Eleven witnesses of good reputation gave evidence on oath before magistrates. One of these magistrates had himself seen the212 creature, and corroborated the most important points of the evidence given by the eleven witnesses. The creature had the appearance of a serpent, dark brown in colour (some said mottled), with white under the head and neck. Its length was estimated at from 50 to 100 feet. The head was in shape like a serpent’s, but as large as a horse’s. No mane was noticed. Five of the witnesses deposed to protuberances on the back; four said the back was straight; the other two gave no opinion on this point. The magistrate who had seen the animal considered the appearance of protuberances was due to the bendings of the body while in rapid motion.

In 1848, when the captain of the British frigate D?dalus had published an account of a similar animal seen by him and several of his officers and crew, the Hon. Colonel T. H. Perkins, of Boston, who had seen the animal on the occasion just mentioned in 1817, gave an account (copied from a letter written in 1820) of what he had witnessed. It is needless to quote those points which correspond with what has been already stated. Colonel Perkins noticed “an appearance in the front of the head like a single horn, about nine inches to a foot in length, shaped like a marlinspike, which will presently be explained. I left the place,” he proceeds, “fully satisfied that the reports in circulation, though differing in details, were essentially correct.” He relates how a person named Mansfield, “one of the most respectable inhabitants of the town, who had been such an unbeliever in the existence of this monster that he had not given himself the trouble to go from his house to the harbour when the report was first made,” saw the animal from a bank overlooking the harbour. Mr. Mansfield and his wife agreed in estimating the creature’s length at 100 feet. Several crews of coasting vessels saw the animal, in some instances within a few yards. “Captain Tappan,” proceeds Colonel Perkins, “a person well known to me, saw him with his head above water two or three feet, at times moving with great rapidity, at others slowly. He also saw what explained the213 appearance which I have described of a horn on the front of the head. This was doubtless what was observed by Captain Tappan to be the tongue, thrown in an upright position from the mouth, and having the appearance which I have given to it. One of the revenue cutters, whilst in the neighbourhood of Cape Ann, had an excellent view of him at a few yards’ distance; he moved slowly, and upon the appearance of the vessel sank and was seen no more.”

Fifteen years later, in May 1833, five British officers—Captain Sullivan, Lieutenants Maclachlan and Malcolm of the Rifle Brigade, Lieutenant Lyster of the Artillery, and Mr. Snee of the Ordnance—when cruising in a small yacht off Margaret’s Bay, not far from Halifax, “saw the head and neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like those of a common snake, in the act of swimming, the head so elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck as to enable us to see the water under and beyond it.” They judged its length to exceed 80 feet. “There could be no mistake nor delusion, and we were all perfectly satisfied that we had been favoured with a view of the ‘true and veritable sea-serpent,’ which had been generally considered to have existed only in the brain of some Yankee skipper, and treated as a tale not entitled to belief.” Dowling, a man-of-war’s man they had along with them, made the following unscientific but noteworthy comment: “Well, I’ve sailed in all parts of the world, and have seen rum sights too in my time, but this is the queerest thing I ever see.” “And surely,” adds Captain Sullivan, “Jack Dowling was right.” The description of the animal agrees in all essential respects with previous accounts, but the head was estimated at about six feet in length—considerably larger, therefore, than a horse’s head.

But unquestionably the account of the sea-serpent which has commanded most attention was that given by the captain, officers, and crew of the British frigate D?dalus, Captain M’Quh?, in 1848. The Times published on October 9, 1848, a paragraph stating that the sea-serpent had been seen214 by the captain and most of the officers and crew of this ship, on her passage home from the East Indies. The Admiralty inquired at once into the truth of the statement, and the following is abridged from Captain M’Quh?’s official reply, addressed to Admiral Sir W. H. Gage.

“Sir,—In reply to your letter, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in the Times newspaper, of a sea-serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from the D?dalus, I have the honour to inform you that at 5 p.m., August 6 last, in latitude 24° 44′ S., longitude 9° 22′ E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from N.W., with long ocean swell from S.W., the ship on the port tack, heading N.E. by N., Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, reported to Lieutenant E. Drummond (with whom, and Mr. W. Barrett, the master, I was walking the quarter-deck) something very unusual rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The object was seen to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, as nearly as we could judge; at least 60 feet of the animal was on the surface, no part of which length was used, so far as we could see, in propelling the animal either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed quietly, but so closely under our lee quarter that, had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should easily have recognized his features with the naked eye. It did not, while visible, deviate from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the pace of from 12 to 15 miles per hour, as if on some determined purpose. The diameter of the serpent was from 15 to 16 inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake. Its colour was a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It did not once, while within the range of view from our glasses, sink below the surface. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quarter-master, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and the officers above-215mentioned. I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s post.—Peter M’Quh?, Captain.”

The drawing here mentioned was published in the Illustrated London News for October 28, 1848, being there described as made “under the supervision of Captain M’Quh?, and his approval of the authenticity of the details as to position and form.”

The correspondence and controversy elicited by the statement of Captain M’Quh? were exceedingly interesting. It is noteworthy, at the outset, that few, perhaps none, who ............