254 EXTINCT MONSTERS. 



has given much attention to this subject, is of the opinion that ' in 

 this huge development of ordinary forms we discover the true and 

 natural law of the production of the giant serpent of the sea.' It 

 goes far at any rate towards accounting for its supposed appearance. 

 I am convinced that whilst naturalists have been searching amongst 

 the vertebrata for a solution of the problem, the great unknown, and 

 therefore unrecognised, Calamaries, by their elongated cylindrical 

 bodies and peculiar mode of swimming, have played the part of the 

 sea-serpent in many a well-authenticated incident. In other cases, 

 such as those mentioned by ' Pontoppidan' {History of Norway], the 

 supposed vertical undulations of the snake seen out of water have 

 been the burly bodies of so many porpoises swimming in line the 

 connecting undulations beneath the surface have been supplied by 

 the imagination. The dorsal fins of basking sharks, as figured by 

 Dr. Andrew Wilson, may have furnished the 'ridge of fins;' an 

 enormous conger is not an impossibility ; a giant turtle may have 

 done duty, with its propelling flippers and broad back ; or a marine 

 snake of enormous size may really have been seen. But if we accept 

 as accurate the observations recorded (which I certainly do not in all 

 cases, for they are full of errors and mistakes), the difficulty is not 

 entirely met, even by this last admission, for the instances are very 

 few in which an Ophidian proper a true serpent is indicated. 

 There has seemed to be wanting an animal having a long snake-like 

 neck, a small head, and a slender body, and propelling itself by 

 paddles. 



" The similarity of such an animal to the Plesiosaurus of old was 

 remarkable. That curious compound reptile, which has been com- 

 pared with ' a snake threaded through the body of a turtle,' is 

 described by Dean Buckland as having ' the head of a lizard, the 

 teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling the body 

 of a serpent, the ribs of a cameleon, and the paddles of a whale.' In 

 the number of its cervical vertebrae (about thirty-three) it surpasses 

 that of the longest-necked bird, the swan. 



" The form and probable movements of this ancient Saurian agree so 

 markedly with some of the accounts given of 'the great sea-serpent,' 

 that Mr. Edward Newman advanced the opinion that the closest 

 affinities of the latter would be found to be with the Enaliosaurians, 

 or Marine Lizards, whose fossil remains are so abundant in the 

 Oolite and the Lias. This view has been taken by other writers, and 

 emphatically by Mr. Gosse. Neither he nor Mr. Newman insist that 

 ' the great unknown ' must be the Plesiosaurus itself. Mr. Gosse 



