STRANGE SEA CREATURES. 215 



mentioned. I am having a drawing of the serpent made 

 from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I 

 hope to have ready for my Lords Commissioners of the 

 Admiralty by to-morrow's post. Peter M'Quhae, Captain." 



The drawing here mentioned was published in the Illus- 

 trated London News for October 28, 1848, being there 

 described as made "under the supervision of Captain 

 M'Quhae, and his approval of the authenticity of the details 

 as to position and form." 



The correspondence and controversy elicited by the 

 statement of Captain M'Quhae were exceedingly interesting. 

 It is noteworthy, at the outset, that few, perhaps none, who 

 had read the original statement, suggested the idea of illu- 

 sion, while it need hardly perhaps be said that no one 

 expressed the slightest doubt as to the bona fides of Captain 

 M'Quhae and his fellow- witnesses. These points deserve 

 attention, because, in recent times, the subject of the sea- 

 serpent has been frequently mentioned in public journals 

 and elsewhere as though no accounts of the creature had 

 ever been given which had been entitled to credence. I 

 proceed to summarise the correspondence which followed 

 M'Quhae's announcement The full particulars will be 

 found in Mr. Gosse's interesting work, the " Romance of 

 Natural History," where, however, as it seems to me, the 

 full force of the evidence is a little weakened, for all save 

 naturalists, by the introduction of particulars not bearing 

 directly on the questions at issue. 



Among the earliest communications was one from Mr. J. 

 D. M. Stirling, a gentleman who, during a long residence in 

 Norway, had heard repeated accounts of the sea-serpent in 

 Norwegian seas, and had himself seen a fish or reptile at a 

 distance of a quarter of a mile, which, examined through 

 a telescope, corresponded in appearance with the sea-serpent 

 as usually described. This communication was chiefly in- 

 teresting, however, as advancing the theory that the supposed 

 sea-serpent is not a serpent at all, but a long-necked plesio- 

 saurian. This idea had been advanced earlier, but with 



