The Sea Serpent 25 



to escape from parasites — crustaceans that torture their soft 

 flesh, or sharks that would tear it. 



Numerous specimens have been found in the Pacific, and 

 to these several names have been given, but the species are 

 not at all clearly made out. The oldest name is that of 

 Regalecus russelli, for the naturalist, Patrick Russell, who 

 took a specimen at Vizagapatam in 1788. We have seen two 

 large examples of Regalecus in the museum at Tokio, and 

 several young ones have recently been stranded on the Island 

 of Santa Catalina in Southern California. A specimen 

 twenty-two feet long lately came ashore at Newport in 

 Orange County, California. The story of its capture is 

 thus told by Mr. Horatio J. Forgy, of Santa Ana, California : 



" On the 22nd of February, 1901, a Mexican Indian re- 

 ported at Newport Beach that about one mile up the coast 

 he had landed a sea serpent, and as proof showed four 

 tentacles and a strip of flesh about six feet long. A crowd 

 went up to see it, and they said it was about twenty feet 

 long, and hke a fish in some respects, and like a snake in 

 others. Mr. Remsberg and I, on the following day, went 

 up to see it, and in a short time we gathered a crowd, and 

 with the assistance of Mr. Peabody prepared the fish and 

 took the picture you have received. 



" It measured twenty-one feet and some inches in length, 

 and weighed about 500 or 600 pounds. 



** The Indian, when he reported his discovery, said it 

 was alive and in the shallow water, and that he had landed 

 it himself. 



" This I very much doubt, but when it was first landed 

 it was in a fine state of preservation and could have easily 

 been shipped to you, but he had cut it to such an extent that 

 shipment or preservation seemed out of the question when 

 we first saw it. 



" At the time it came ashore, an unusual number of pecu- 

 liar fishes and sharks were found. Among others, I found 

 a small oar-fish about three feet long, in a bad state of pres- 



