268 



KNOWLEDGE • 



[Nov. 



1883. 



liarities. When an ordinary live-box is used to hold 

 a blow-fly captive, thert^ is some difficulty in holding 

 him tit'ht enough, with the under side up, and yet 



W/A'y.WW/.yW^/^/^M^MW/yM W'-^/w/zMm/ZWr^/'^/M-^'^.:-^ 



C. — Parts of Tubular Live-Box. 



not so squeezed as to injure him, or interfere with 

 his comfort. The tube live-box (C) is made with a 

 small tube bottle, such as is used by homit-opathic chemists, 

 about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide at the 

 mouth. This is inserted into a hole cut in a wooden slide, 

 and its rim prevents its falling through. Another wooden 

 slide has a hole cut through it of rather larger diameter, 

 and on the top side a thin glass cover is fastened with 

 shellac glue. This slide is laid on the other. The glass 

 cover forms a lid, which closes the tube bottle, and is held 

 in its place by an elastic india-rubber band. A little 

 cotton wool is put into the bottom of the tube to shorten 

 the space, to suit the length of the fly, which must be 

 inserted mouth uppermost, and kept moderately near the 

 glass cover, upon which a drop of syrup is placed. Flies 

 will readily feed in this position, and they are sufficiently 

 limited in the power of lateral motion that they are easily 

 kept in view with l^ inch or inch objective. 



STRANGE SEA CREATURES. 



By Eichard A. Proctor. 



THE Vicar of Bude reported recently the appearance of 

 what he took to be some strange sea monster about a 

 mile and a half from shore, near Bude Bay, travelling along 

 at the rate of about twenty-five miles per hour (estimated). 

 The object, whatever it was, was variously estimated at from 

 50 ft. to 80 ft. in length, which may be taken to mean that 

 in all probability it was at least 30 ft. long. At one time 

 a portion was so raised above the sea as to suggest that the 

 monster was more like a serpent than a cetacean. 



It is quite possible that the Vicar of Bude and those who 

 ■with him saw this object were deceived by something which 

 looked like a live sea creature, but was in reality not alive 

 at all. In many ways such illusions have been produced. 

 Some mass of floating seawrack, tossed by the waves into 

 the semblance of life, may very well, at so great a distance 

 as a mile and a half, have deceived the observers. 



But it is well to notice that, although in numbers of 

 cases objects taken for sea monsters have turned out to be 

 inanimate masses, none of these interpretations of so-called 

 sea-serpent stories can in the slightest degree negative the 



evidence obtained in such cases as that of the Dcedalus, 

 Government frigate, in wliich Captain ISIcQuhae and his 

 officers saw a sea creature unlike any known to science, 

 travelling along against wind and sea, at the rate of twelve 

 knots an hour, with the waves curling against its breast, 

 and at a distance of less than 200 yards; so that, as Captain 

 McQuhae puts it, a friend's countenance would have been 

 recognisable at the distance. In several other cases the 

 evidence has been equally decisive. 



Then there have been other new sea creatures not at all 

 like the supposed sea-serpent ; — one, for instance, like a 

 monster skate seen a few years back ; another seen when 

 the sea chanced to be exceptionally clear, crawling over the 

 bottom of a bay on the Californian coast ; and again, that 

 singular sea monster seen in the Mediterranean a few years 

 ago by the officers and crew of the Osborne, soon after a 

 volcanic explosion had disturbed the sea bed there. 



The fact really is that so far from the belief being absurd 

 that creatures hitherto unknown exist in the depths of the 

 sea, the wonder rather would be if men knew all, or even 

 half, of the inhabitants of the ocean. It is astonishing how 

 few of the denizens of the deep ever show themselves. In 

 a sea journey lasting many weeks, one may see a shoal or 

 two of porpoises, a whale or two, or the spouting of whales 

 at a distance, a few sharks, flying-fish, and so forth, but not 

 one in a million even of the sea creatures which during the 

 voyage have been near the ship. For one sea creature 

 which has occasion to come near the surface there are 

 millions which never show themselves. I doubt if even 

 half of the races of fish are known. 



That there are marine creatures, also, other than fish, 

 passing all their time beneath the sea surface, except 

 when some occasional, and as it were accidental, circum- 

 stance may compel one of the race to come to the top, may 

 be held to be absolutely certain. The doubts which have 

 been flung on sea-serpent narratives, authenticated by re- 

 sponsible and reputable persons, are not scientific doubts, 

 but the doubts of smatterers, who imagine that an air of 

 doubt is an air of wisdom. 



Quite probably none of the unfamiliar creatures taken 

 for large serpents are serpentine at all. They may l>e long- 

 necked creatures like the Dolichodeiros, or simply in some 

 cases long backed creatures like the Plesiosaurus, or they 

 may have been in some cases only very large ribbon-fish. 

 But to confound well-authenticated accounts such as 

 Captain McQuhae's and those given by the otficers of the 

 Osborne, with the taradiddles told for their own amusement 

 (and half the time without any expectation that they will 

 be believed) by Yankee salts, is to make an egregious 

 blunder. 



Vice-Admiral Coles goes a little further. Because a 

 particularly illusory sea-serpent which deluded some sea- 

 men in the British Channel turned cut to be a long line 

 of soot, from the sweepings of a steamer's dirty flues, he 

 thinks he has found the reason not only for the Rev. 

 Mr. Highton's sea-serpent, but for the whole brood. The 

 DccxlaJus in the South Atlantic was Terij likely to be in 

 the track of steamers' soot-sweepings. — Xewcasth Weekly 

 Chronicle. 



The large number of accidents occurring on American 

 railways through earless crossing of the line, induces the 

 American Journal of Railway Appliances (Sept. 15) to 

 advocate prosecutions for recklessness, according to the 

 English practice. It recommends that persons should be 

 proceeded against for walking on the line, and jumping on 

 and oft' trains in motion. Similar suggestions are made by 

 other American papers. 



