366 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1&16. 



I do not find by any of my correspondents, that they spout the water out of 

 their nostrils like the whale, only in that one instance related by Mr. Egede, as 

 mentioned above ; but when it approaches, it puts the water in great agitation, 

 and makes it run like the current at a mill. Those on our coast differ like- 

 wise from the Greenland sea snakes, A%ith regard to the skin, which is as smooth 

 as glass, and has not the least wrinkle, but about the neck, where there is a 

 kind of a mane, which looks like a parcel of seaweeds hanging down to the 

 water. 



The observer iindoiibtedl}^ mistook the tail of a giant squid for the 

 head of the serpent and the flukes for the limbs. 

 We quote again (pp. 202-203) : 



One of the aforesaid North traders, who says that he has been near enougih 

 to some of these sea snakes (alive) to feel their smooth skin, informs me, that 

 sometimes they will raise up their frightful heads, and snap a man out of a 

 boat, without hurting the rest ; but I will not affirm this for a truth, because 

 it is not certain that they are a fish of prey. Yet this, and their enmity to man- 

 kind, can be no more determined, than that of the land snake, by the words of 

 the prophet Amos (chap, ix, v.3) : "And though they be hid from my sight in 

 the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite 

 them." 



And again (p. 207) Magnus, in his Hist or. Septentrion. Lib. 21. 

 c. 24, speaks of a Norwegian sea snake 80 feet long, but not thicker 

 than a child's arm. He says : 



This creature, was put to such pain by the crabs fastening on, it, that it 

 writhed itself into a hundred shapes. I have never heard of this sort from 

 any otlaer person, and should hardly believe the good Olaus, if he did not say 

 that he affirmed this from his own experience. * * * T^g disproportion 

 betwixt the thickness of a child's arm, and a length of SO feet, makes me think 

 there must be an error of the press in the place, for xl. perhaps should be xi. 

 ells, or 22 feet; a more proportionable length, for the thickness. 



And yet good Olaus's observation may not have been so very wrong, 

 in fact much nearer the truth than the above listed yarns, in all prob- 

 ability it represented the tentacular arms of a giant squid. 



To show the keenness of observation of early seamen, we quote 

 the following from the same source (pp. 211-213) : 



Our fishermen unanimously affirm, and without the least variation in their 

 accounts, that when they row out several miles to sea, particularly in the 

 hot summer days, and by their situation (which they know by taking a view 

 of certain points of land) expect to find 80 or 100 fathoms water, it often 

 happens that they do not find above 20 or 30, and sometimes less. At these 

 places they generally find the greatest plenty of fish, especially cod and ling. 

 Their lines, they say, are no sooner out than they may draw them up with 

 the hooks all full of fish ; by this they judge that the kraken is at the bottom. 

 They say this creature causes those unnatural shallows mentioned above, and 

 prevents their sounding. These the fishermen are always glad to find, looking 

 upon them as a means of their taking abundance of fish. There are sometimes 

 20 boats or more got together and throwing out their lines at a moderate dis- 

 tance from each other; and the only thing they then have to observe is 

 whether the depth continues the same, which they know by their lines, or 



