2'64 SNAKES. 



those assigned, and in addition I may suggest that the love 

 of locaHty, so strong in land reptiles, may also exist in marine 

 ones, which probably retire to the recesses of their sub- 

 marine habitats to die. 



* How is it none have ever been killed ? ' Well ! A cannon 

 ball on the instant, and not much less, would be required to 

 ' kill it on the spot,' as some have sagely recommended. 



Mr. Henry Lee, among others, does not regard capture as 

 impossible ; and in support of my own speculations — more 

 correctly speaking imagination, perhaps — I give the conclud- 

 ing words of his paper: — 



• I therefore think it by no means impossible— first, that there may be gigantic 

 marine animals miknown to science having their ordinary habitat in the great 

 depths of the sea, only occasionally coming to the surface, and perhaps avoiding 

 habitually the light of day ; and, second, that there may still exist, though sup- 

 posed to have been long extinct, some of the old sea reptiles whose fossil remains 

 tell of their magnitude and habits, or others of species unknown even to paleon- 

 tologists. 



'The evidence is, to my mind, conclusive that enormous animals, with which 

 zoologists are at present unacquainted, exist in the "great and wide sea," and I 

 look forward hopefully to the capture of one or more of them, and the settlement 

 of this vexed question.' 



I cannot conclude this chapter without further reference 

 to one other of our very popular physiologists. Dr. Andrew 

 Wilson. The week following that in which Owen, Captain 

 Gray, and Messrs. Lee, Buckland, and Bartlett contri- 

 buted their opinions to Land and Water, September 8, 1877, 

 Dr. Wilson also favoured its readers with two closely written 

 pages on 'The Sea Serpent of Science.' Some of his 

 introductory words have been already quoted. He then 

 presents the claims to attention which these various ' sea 

 monsters ' offer, as reported by thoroughly trustworthy 



