THE SEA-SERPENTS OF SCIENCE. 121 



the appearance and doings of the " Minhocao," a creature 

 supposed to be a " gigantic earthworm," and which inhabits 

 the highlands of the southern provinces of Brazil. The 

 account as given in the pages of Nature is of similar 

 nature to the stories told us of the existence and appearance 

 of sea-serpents. There is the same simplicity of narrative, 

 united to an absence of all reason or cause for exaggeration 

 or invention. We are therefore bound, as already remarked, 

 either to accept such stories as true, as relating to observed 

 facts, and to examine them impartially with the view of 

 detecting discrepancy and of possibly modifying details ; or, 

 on the other hand, to unhesitatingly and simply reject them. 

 This latter procedure would of course be founded on an 

 unwarrantable supposition, such as in the ordinary affairs 

 of life would not for a moment be tolerated, namely, that 

 deliberate lying and meaningless deception are vices of 

 commoner occurrence than humanity at large has been led 

 to suppose. The marks or tracks of the animal, of whatever 

 description it may be, are a valuable source of evidence 

 which, unfortunately, the "pathless deep " cannot offer to the 

 inquirers into the personality of the " sea-serpent." Pending 

 further research, one may only remark that the details given 

 are in all respects of a very circumstantial and clearly related 

 kind, and are such as would lead us to be exceedingly 

 hopeful, now that scientific attention has been directed to 

 the matter, of new and extraordinary additions being made 

 to the lists of zoologists. The following is the account of 

 the animal in question : 



" The stories told of this supposed animal," says Fritz 

 Miiller, " sound for the most part so incredible that one is 

 tempted to consider them as fabulous. Who could repress 

 a smile at hearing men speak of a worm some fifty yards in 

 length, and five in breadth, covered with bones as with a coat 

 of armour, uprooting mighty pine trees as if they were blades 

 of grass, diverting the courses of streams into fresh channels, 

 and turning dry land into a bottomless morass ? And yet, 

 after carefully considering the different accounts given of the 



