BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATE8 FISH COMMISSION. 327 



the fancied sea-serpent. They laugh so consumedly, and make bo i -h 



noise over it— the laughter of such folks being "as the crackling of 

 thorns under a pot "—that, as my friend Mr. W. Mattieu Williams points 

 out, and as I can confirm, "much valuable evidence concerning the sea 

 serpent is suppressed by the flippant sneering of the class of writers 

 who require no other qualification than ignorance of the subject on 

 which they write. Scores, perhaps, hundreds ol trustworthy mariners 

 of all ranks, in both the naval and mercantile services, have Been whal 

 they believe to be such a creature, but they refuse to publish any ac- 

 count-of their observations, knowing they will be insulted and publicly 

 gibbeted as fools and liars if they do." 



The foolish laughed in the same way over the kraken, ;is you point 

 out, and the mouster they rejected as impossible has been killed and 

 measured. Whether the sea-serpent or any creature whose prey is 

 chiefly sought at a considerable distance belowthe surface, will ever be 

 captured or killed is very doubtful. But their existence ought never 

 to have been regarded as doubtful after the evidence gathered in Mas 

 sachusetts in 1817, and the report of the captain of the Daedalus. 

 There are probably several varieties of sea creatures which look like 

 serpeuts, and among these varieties some may quite probably be really 

 serpentine. But some of the supposed sea-serpents must have really 

 propelled themselves otherwise than as serpentine sea-creatures do, 

 for they moved rapidly along the surface without perceptible undula- 

 tions, and nothing but concealed paddles could have urged them on in 

 this way. In my article on " Strange Sea-Creatures," which appeared 

 eleven years ago in The Gentleman's Magazine, several singular inhab- 

 itants of the sea — and iu particular a monstrous skate seen in the Easl 

 Indies — were described, and evidence given to show that even among 

 comparatively familiar species new varieties are from time to time being 

 discovered. Thus, though no sea-serpent so large as the sea orm 

 or sea-worm, described by Bishop Poutoppidan as GOO feet in length, 

 has as yet been seen, it does not follow that none such exists, albeit, 

 I cannot doubt that the good bishop's accounts are very largely 

 exaggerated. He was not quite so foolish as the modern critic, who, 

 though perhaps he has never left his native town, undertakes to 

 contradict men who describe what they have seen. But I fear In- 

 erred as far in the opposite direction. The boa-constrictor and the 

 condor have been described in such terms by comparatively modern 

 travelers (as Humboldt has shotvn) as would suggest creatures akin 

 to the serpent which went for Siiidbad, and the roc which also adorns 

 Sindbad's narrative and appears elsewhere in tales of the East. Bui 

 to exaggerate is one thing, to invent is another. The man who is 

 foolish enough to lie about his traveling experiences is not capable of 

 inventing a new animal worth five minutes' consideration ; but, on the 

 other hand, the man who, being sensible, is honest and truthful, is yet 

 very apt to err in the way of unintentional exaggeration. I think poor 



