APPENDIX. 255 



says, ' I should not look for any species, scarcely for any genus, to be 

 perpetuated from the Oolitic period to the present. Admitting the 

 actual continuation of the order Enaliosauria, it would be, I think, 

 quite in conformity with general analogy to find some salient features 

 of several extinct forms.' 



" The form and habits of the recently recognised gigantic cuttles 

 account for so many appearances which, without knowledge of them, 

 were inexplicable when Mr. Gosse and Mr. Newman wrote, that I 

 think this theory is not forced upon us. Mr. Gosse well and clearly 

 sums up the evidence as follows : ' Carefully comparing the inde- 

 pendent narratives of English witnesses of known character and 

 position, most of them being officers under the Crown, we have a 

 creature possessing the following characteristics : (i) The general 

 form of a serpent ; (2) great length, say above sixty feet ; (3) head 

 considered to resemble that of a serpent ; (4) neck from twelve to 

 sixteen inches in diameter ; (5) appendages on the head, neck, or 

 back, resembling a crest or mane (considerable discrepancy in details); 

 (6) colour, dark brown or green, streaked or spotted with white ; (7) 

 swims at surface of the water with a rapid or slow movement, the head 

 and neck projected and elevated above the surface ; (8) progression 

 steady and uniform, the body straight, but capable of being thrown 

 into convolutions ; (9) spouts in the manner of a whale ; (10) like a 

 long "nun-buoy."' He concludes with the question, 'To which ot 

 the recognised classes of created beings can this huge rover of the 

 ocean be referred ?' 



"I reply, 'to the Cephalopoda.' There is not one of the above 

 judiciously summarised characteristics that is not supplied by the 

 great Calamary, and its ascertained habits and peculiar mode of 

 locomotion. 



*' Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the balance 

 of probability is contrary to the supposition that any of the gigantic 

 marine Saurians of the secondary deposits should have continued to 

 live up to the present time. And yet I am bound to say that this 

 does not amount to an impossibility, for the evidence against it is 

 entirely negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be in exist- 

 ence some congeners of these great reptiles inconsistent with 

 zoological science. Dr. J. E. Gray, late of the British Museum, a 

 strict zoologist, is cited by Mr. Gosse as having long ago expressed 

 his opinion that some undescribed form exists which is intermediate 

 between the tortoises and the serpents/' (This is quoted by Mr. Lee 

 in a footnote.) 



