444 Bibliographical Notices. 



accepts the conclusions which are so eagerly sought to be drawn 

 from them. 



Although we regret that the conclusions as to the Irish Elk should 

 have been so readily adopted in the present work, it is satisfactory 

 to think that no similar uncertainty can exist as to the special object 

 of the work itself. It is true that Mr. Strickland speaks (p. 62) of 

 " rescuing these anomalous creatures from the domain of fiction." 

 He can hardly intend, however, what these words seem to imply. 

 Few persons who have any familiarity with the subject can now pre- 

 tend to doubt the former existence of an actual creature, — the living 

 Dodo. Even Mr. Gray, when doubting that the head and feet of 

 Edwards's picture belonged to the same creature, cannot escape the 

 conclusion of the former existence, and now extinction, of some 

 great bird in the islands of the Eastern Seas. The present work is, 

 nevertheless, of very great interest and value, even on this part of 

 its subject, for the industry, care, and success with which all the 

 notices of these creatures by any of the old navigators have been 

 collected, together with many other incidental mentions made of 

 them, and with the addition of notices of all the representations or 

 remains of them whose existence can be ascertained. This part of 

 the work forms an important illustration of the kind of evidence on 

 which alone any true naturalist can admit the existence of any ano- 

 malous creature. In proof of the existence of the Dodo we have, 

 unlike the assumed evidence of the existence of some other anoma- 

 lous monsters of which we have lately heard much, every canon of 

 cautious truthseeking fully satisfied. With no traditional supersti- 

 tion or belief to give an origin to such a story * (a point of no little 

 importance in such an investigation), we have here fifteen or sixteen 

 separate and independent authorities all alluding incidentally to the 

 Dodo, each different in language and description, yet each of which 

 has points of resemblance that cannot be mistaken as referring to 

 similar objects. We have moreover drawings of the creature itself, 

 made by different hands, and at different times, and with different 

 objects ; some of them rude and coarse to grotesqueness ; others 

 finished works of art. Yet throughout all these there run characters 

 which it is impossible to mistake, and which satisfy us that the 

 draughtsmen drew, not from imagination, but from something real, 



* It has always seemed to us that the fable of the Great Sea Serpent, 

 which first spread in modern times from Norway, was to be traced to the 

 myth, in the fine Old Northern Mythology, of that fell offspring of Loki, 

 Jormungandr, — the great world-surrounding serpent, whom Thor fished up 

 with the bull's-head bait, and whom, at the great day of Ragnarokr, he shall 

 slay. It is curious, by the way, that we are expressly told how Jormungandr, 

 rearing his head, poured out fountains of venom upon Thor, very much as 

 old Bishop Egede tells us of the great sea serpent raising up its head and 

 spouting out water. 



Since the above, and the former part of this note, were written, Professor 

 Owen's letter has appeared in the ' Times ' of November 14 ; which gives a 

 simple and clear explanation of the circumstances that have recently 

 attracted attention, and briefly, but conclusively, discusses the question 

 of the existence of the Great Sea Serpent generally. 



