94 NATURE STUDIES. 



We now have evidence actually taken hi a court of 

 law, though the sea-serpent has not yet appeared 

 either as plaintiff or defendant in any legal case. Our 

 readers have already, no doubt, seen all the details of 

 the evidence given by the captain, officers, and several 

 of the crew of the barque Pauline, under affidavit, at 

 the Liverpool Police-court, It is manifest, to begin 

 with, that unless these five persons were possessed by 

 a singular taste for unnecessary perjury, we have to 

 deal with a story which cannot relate to floating trees, 

 distant hills, porpoises swimming in Indian file, or 

 the like. A large sperm whale was seen, gripped 

 round the body with two turns of what appeared to 

 be a huge serpent, whose head and tail appeared to 

 have a length beyond the coils of about thirty feet, its 

 girth being apparently about eight or nine feet. For 

 about a quarter of an hour a fierce struggle took place 

 between the serpent and its victim, at the end of 

 which the whale was mastered, and suddenly dragged 

 head first into the depths of the sea. (The account 

 says "to the bottom," but we may be permitted to 

 question whether the bottom was visible.) As the 

 usual length of the cachalot, or sperm whale, is about 

 seventy feet and the girth about fifty, the creature 

 which achieved this decisive victory must have been 

 a rather large animal, and would prove an " awkward 

 customer " (in the old fighting slang), if it chose to 

 attack a small ship. It would seem to have had some 

 idea of the sort, for five days after the capture of the 

 whale, a similar serpent was seen, about two hundred 



