98 



beauty that cliaracterizos the familj^ to which it giros its 

 name. 



F. \Y. Putnam of Salem, being ayked what was the opin- 

 ion of Agassiz as to the Sea Serpejit, stated that the great 

 naturalist had often remarked to liim that " there was no 

 reason wliy there should not be a Sea Serpent, but as yet 

 lie knew of no sufficient proof that there was one." Ra- 

 finesque, a half century ago, named and described from the 

 accounts giren by sailors and others, several genera and 

 species of Sea Serpents, 



A committee of the New-England Linna^an Society made 

 a report which vfas printed forty or fifty years since, upon a 

 specimen, as it was claimed, of this wonderful creature. But 

 that specimen was, doubtless, notliing but a mal-formed 

 black snake. 



Mr. Putnam remarked upon tlie kinds of insects collected 

 by him during the day, stating that such as arc found along 

 the sea shore always differ materially from those proper to 

 the interior. He further spoke of the difference of the ani- 

 mals of the land and the ocean, saying that in the ocean 

 while we find nearly all classes represented, they are gener- 

 ally the lower orders of the class, and also species that attain 

 the greatest bulk ; thus in the higher class, that of mamma- 

 lia, we find its giants, the Whales, only in the ocean, and 

 these are of the lowest order of the true mammals. 



In the class of Birds, t.he lowest, or the Sea-Birds, are also 

 of large size, having but few equals on land. In the Reptiles 

 this is reversed, as we find that what have generally been 

 held as the highest order, the Chelonians, are represented 

 by the large Sea-Turtles ; while the lowest true Reptiles, the 

 Snakes, are terrestrial. Among the class of Batrachians 

 there are no marine representatives known. In the class of 

 Fishes, the Sharks and Skates exceed all others in bulk, and 



