THE LARGE SEA-SNAKE. 185 
to some commoner sea-animal of large size; but the testimony 
of a Scoresby, who during his frequent Arctic voyages never 
saw anything of the kind, would have been more convincing. 
If tc this account of Egede be added the reports of some 
other northern divines, such as Pontoppidan, the missionary 
Nicholas Gremius, and Maclean, who either pretend to have 
actually seen the monster or write about it from hearsay—and 
the testimony of a few seamen, among others of Captain 
M‘Quhae of the Dedalus, who, on the 6th of August, 1848, 
saw a sea-snake on his homeward voyage from the East Indies ; 
we have all the evidence extant in favour of the existence of 
the monstrous animal. 
In opposition to these testimonies, incredulous naturalists beg 
to remark, that no museum possesses a single bone of the huge 
snake, and that its body has nowhere been found swimming on 
the ocean or cast ashore. They therefore agree with Professor 
Owen in regarding the negative evidence, from the utter absence 
of any recent remains, as stronger against their actual existence 
than the positive statements which have hitherto weighed with 
the public mind in favour of their reality; and believe that a 
larger body of evidence from eye-witnesses might be got 
together in proof of the reality of ghosts than in proof of the 
existence of the great sea-serpent. 
The plain truth seems to be that lines of rolling porpoises, 
resembling a long string of buoys, first gave origin to the 
marvellous stories of the fabulous monster. For, keeping in 
close single file, and progressing rapidly along the calm surface 
of the water by a succession of leaps or demivaults forward, 
part only of their uncouth forms appears to the eye, so as to 
resemble the undulatory motions of one large serpentiform 
animal. 
