SEA SERPENT — KRAKEN. 243 



is such an animal: I have seen one nearly 

 ten feet long, and there may be longer ones, 

 but such animals do not come to the surface. 

 The only sea snake which has been examined 

 by naturalists, turned out to be a putrid spe- 

 cies of shark — the squalus maximus. Yet 

 all the newspapers gave accounts of this as 

 a real animal, and endowed it with feet, 

 which do not belong to serpents. And the 

 sea snakes seen by American and Norwe- 

 gian Captains, have, I think, generally been 

 a company of porpoises, the rising and sink- 

 ing of which in lines would give somewhat 

 the appearance of the coils of a snake. The 

 kraken, or island fish, is still more imaginary. 

 I have myself seen immense numbers of 

 enormous urticce marines, or blubbers, in the 

 north seas, and in some of the Norwegian 

 fiords, or inland bays, and often these beau- 

 tiful animals give colour to the water; but 

 it is exceedingly improbable that an animal 

 of this genus should ever be of the size, even 

 of the whale ; its soft materials are little fitted 

 for locomotion, and such an animal would 

 be easily destroyed by every kind of fish. 



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