314 GREAT SEA-SERPENT. 



entire, and measured by respectable individuals, 

 and afterwards, when dead and broken in pieces by 

 the violence of the waves, was again examined by 

 many; portions of it being secured, such as the 

 skull, and upper bones of the swimming paws, by 

 Mr Laing, a neighbouring proprietor; and other 

 portions, such as the vertebrae, &c., by being de- 

 posited and beautifully preserved in the Royal 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh, and in 

 the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. An 

 able paper on these latter fragments, and on the 

 wreck of the animal, was read by the late Dr Bar- 

 clay to the Wernerian Society, and will be found 

 in vol. i. of its Transactions, to which we refer. 

 We can allow space only for a very short abridg- 

 ment of these documents, which, be it remembered, 

 furnish an account of the animal principally after 

 it had been mutilated ; and hence we cannot wonder 

 if the original accounts are both imperfect and 

 contradictory. It measured fifty-six feet in 

 length, and twelve in circumference. The head 

 was small, not being a foot in length, from the 

 snout to the first vertebre ; the neck was slender, ex- 

 tending to the length of fifteen feet. All the ac- 

 counts agree in assigning it blow-holes, though they 

 differ as to their precise situation. On the shoulders 

 something like a bristly mane commenced, which 

 extended to near the extremity of the tail. It had 

 three pairs of fins or paws connected with the body ; 

 the anterior were the largest, measuring more than 

 four feet in length, and their extremities were some 



