THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



of superior shrewdness in the eyes of an English- 

 man, who, he at once concluded, must undoubt- 

 edly disbelieve the existence of the marine monster. 

 That Englishman, however, certainly partakes of 

 the credulity of the Northmen, and cannot with- 

 hold his belief in the existence of some huge in- 

 habitant of those northern seas, when, to his 

 mind, the fact of his existence has been so clearly 

 proved by numerous eye-witnesses, many of whom 

 were too intelligent to be deceived, and too honest 

 to be doubted.'* 



In 1817, the Linnaean Society of New England 

 published a ''Report relative to a large marine 

 animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen near Cape 

 Ann, Massachusetts, in August" of that year. A 

 good deal of care was taken to obtain evidence 

 and the depositions of eleven witnesses of fair and 

 unblemished characters were taken on the matter, 

 and certified on oath before magistrates, one of 

 whom himself saw the creature, and corroborated 

 the statements of the deponents on the most im- 

 portant points. The serpent form was attested 

 by all, and the colour, a dark brown, mottled, 

 according to some, with white on the under parts 

 of the head and neck. The length was variously 

 estimated, from fifty to a hundred feet. No nj>- 

 pearance of mane was seen by any. The head 

 was compared to that of a sea-turtle, a rattle- 

 snake, and a serpent generally; and, for size, to 

 that of a horse. As to the form of the body, five 

 deponents speak of dorsal protuberances; four 

 declare that the body was straight, while two do 

 not moot the point. The mode of progression is 

 generally spoken of as by vertical undulation, 

 "like that of a caterpillar,"— probably a looping 

 or geometric caterpillar is meant. The magistrate 

 * Zoologist, p. 3328. 

 288 



