252 THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT. 



of the whole circumstances, to the late Sir Joseph Banks, 

 in whose library the documents are still preserved. 



An animal of similar appearance was again seen in 

 August, 1819, off Nahant, Boston, which remained in the 

 neighborhood for some weeks. When first seen, it was 

 stationary for four hours near the shore, and two hundred 

 persons assembled to view it. Thirteen folds were counted, 

 and the head, which was Serpent-shaped, was elevated 

 two feet above the surface. Its eye was remarkably bril- 

 liant and glistening. The water was smooth, and the 

 weather calm and serene. When it disappeared, its mo- 

 tion was undulatory, making curves perpendicular to the 

 surface of the water, and giving the appearance of a long 

 moving string of corks. The last notice we have seen of 

 this American animal, bears date July, 1833. The Boston 

 and New York papers of that date state, that the Sea-Ser- 

 pent had again appeared off Nahant. "It was first seen 

 on Saturday afternoon, passing between Egg Rock and 

 the Promontory, winding his way into Lynn Harbor, and 

 again on Sunday morning, heading for South Shores. He 

 was seen by forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen, who insist 

 that they could not have been deceived." 



In connection with the animal thus seen in America, we 

 must not omit the authentic account of a previously unde- 

 scribed species of Serpent, which has a striking resem- 

 blance in some of its features to the apocryphal animal on 

 which we are now dwelling. The Boston Society of 

 Natural History has the merit of having first brought this 

 Serpent under the notice of Zoologists, and the committee 

 who described it unhesitatingly regarded it as a specimen 

 of one of the young of the Great Sea-Serpent. It was 

 seen and killed in September, 1817, near Sandy Bay, 

 between a salt lake and the sea, at no great distance from 

 the shore, and was speedily brought to Boston for the 

 examination of the Society. It was a yard long all but 

 half an inch. The contour of the back exhibited its most 



