STRANGE SEA CREATURES. 221 



seems, in my judgment, as startling as the ingenious theory 

 thrown out by some naturalists when they first heard of the 

 giraffe to the effect that some one of lively imagination 

 had mistaken the entire body of a short-horned antelope for 

 the neck of a much larger animal ! 



Captain M'Quhae immediately replied : " I assert that 

 neither was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant ; its great 

 length and its totally different physiognomy precluding the 

 possibility of its being a Phoca of any species. The head 

 was flat, and not a capacious vaulted cranium ; nor had it a 

 stiff, inflexible trunk a conclusion to which Professor Owen 

 has jumped, most certainly not justified by my simple state- 

 ment, that ' no portion of the 60 feet seen by us was used 

 in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or hori- 

 zontal undulation.'" He explained that the calculation of 

 the creature's length was made before, not after, the idea 

 had been entertained that the animal was a serpent, and that 

 he and his officers were " too well accustomed to judge of 

 lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real 

 substance and an actual living body, coolly and dispassion- 

 ately contemplated, at so short a distance too, for the ' eddy 

 caused by the action of the deeply immersed fins and tail of 

 a rapidly moving, gigantic seal raising its head above the 

 water,' as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost ice- 

 berg." He next disposed of Owen's assertion that the idea 

 of clothing the serpent with a mane had been suggested by 

 old Pontoppidan's story, simply because he had never seen 

 Pontoppidan's account or heard of Pontoppidan's sea-serpent 

 until he had told his own tale in London. Finally, he 

 added, " I deny the existence of excitement, or the possi- 

 bility of optical illusion. I adhere to the statement as to 

 form, colour, and dimensions, contained in my report to the 

 Admiralty." 



A narrative which appeared in the Times early in 1849 

 must be referred to in this place, as not being readily 

 explicable by Professor Owen's hypothesis. It was written by 

 Mr R. Davidson, superintending surgeon, Najpore Subsidiary 



