THE GREA T SEA SERPENT, 385 



bably a gigantic calamary, such as we now know exist, 

 and the dead carcases of which have -been found in the 

 locality where the event depicted is supposed to have taken 

 place. The presumed body of the serpent was one of the 

 arms of the squid, and the two rows of suckers thereto 

 belonging are indicated in the illustration by the medial 

 line traversing its whole length (intended to represent a 

 dorsal fin) and the double row of transverse septa, one on 

 each side of it. 



In Fig. 14 an enormous lobster is in the act of similarly 

 dragging overboard from a vessel a man whom it has seized 

 by the arm with one of its great claws. From the crude 

 image of a lobster having eight minor claws and two larger 

 ones, to that of a cuttle having eight minor arms and two 

 longer ones, the transition is not great ; and I believe that 

 this also is a pictorial misrepresentation of a casualty by 

 the attack of a calamary similar to that above described, 

 possibly another view of the same incident. The idea 

 is that of a sea animal capable of suddenly seizing and 

 grasping a man, and we must remember that we have 

 evidence, in the writings of Pontoppidan and others, that, 

 even two centuries later than Olaus Magnus, the Norse- 

 men's knowledge of the cuttles was exceedingly vague and 

 indistinct. Any one who has seen, as I frequently have at 

 the Brighton Aquarium, and as they doubtless had whilst 

 lobster-catching, the threatening and ferocious manner in 

 which a lobster will brandish, and, if I may use the term, 

 " gnash " its claws at an intruding hand, even if held above 

 the surface of the water, can well imagine a party of fisher- 

 men discussing such a tragic occurrence as the foregoing, 

 and differing in opinion as to the identity of the creature 

 which had caused the catastrophe, some maintaining that 

 it must have been a sea serpent, and others shaking their 



VOL. in. H.- 2 c 



