on the Sea Long-worm of Borlase. ' 295 
a proboscis which was eight inches in length. It is very strange, 
that during the space of time above stated, and the various treat- 
ment which the creature had experienced, as well as the different 
attitudes and states [had seen it in, it never in the least exhibited 
this part of itself till in its dying convulsion. 
It being, as I have before observed, impossible while the ani- 
mal was alive to make any reasonable conjecture as to the length 
and breadth of it, I took it out of the bottle, and, on measuring it, 
found it full two-and-twenty feet long, exclusive of the proboscis. 
Now, after the various and repeated observations which I have 
made, I give it as my firm opinion, that I speak within bounds - 
when I say the animal, when alive, might have been extended to 
four times, at least, its length when dead. I therefore look on 
what Mr. Sowerby gives, on the authority of the fishermen at 
Newhaven, to be by no means improbable, viz. that this most 
astonishing creature may have been known to be susceptible of 
being drawn to the length of twelve fathoms; or, according to 
the account of the fishermen on the south coast of Devonshire, to 
Mr. Montagu, to thirty yards or fifteen fathoms. Indeed Mr. Mon- 
tagu's own account, of one of the length of eight feet when alive, 
being reduced to one foot when immersed in spirits, does more 
than support my opinion. 
This subject and another specimen were found beneath the 
Green, near Beaumares, at the time of praepos in the month. 
of March 1812. . 
XXX. A 
