Aquatic Reptiles 223 



unconvincing. Many explanations for its 

 appearance have been offered floating 

 rope, seaweeds, the tentacles of a giant 

 squid, or a school of dolphins swimming 

 in single file. All these very natural 

 phenomena might, at a distance, well 

 suggest a giant snake to the super- 

 imaginative or intoxicated. Before dis- 

 missing the " sea serpent " to its proper 

 place Fleet Street a few of the more 

 entertaining accounts of the monster may 

 be quoted. 



Archbishop Magnus, a naturalist living 

 in the year 1555, who recorded all natural 

 and unnatural phenomena that came his 

 way without asking inconvenient ques- 

 tions, tells us that : " They who sail 

 along the shores of Norway relate with 

 convincing evidence that particularly 

 admirable story, namely, that a very 

 large serpent of 200 feet in length 

 and 20 feet in diameter lives in rocks 

 and holes near the shores of Bergen. 



