116 SIR EVERARD HOME S OPINION. [CHAP. VIII. 



different accounts communicated to him, called it Halsydrus Pon- 

 toppidani. 



Parts of the cranium, scapular arch, fin, and vertebral column 

 were sent to Dr. Barclay of Edinburgh, who had at that time 

 the finest museum of comparative anatomy north of the Tweed, 

 and he conceived them to belong to a new and entirely unknown 

 monster. 



If the imagination of good zoologists could be so preoccupied 

 as to cause them at once to jump to the conclusion that the 

 Stronsa animal and the Norwegian sea serpent were one and the 

 same, we can not be surprised that the public in general placed 

 the most implicit faith in that idea. That they did so, is proved 

 by a passage recently published in Beattie s Life of Campbell, 

 where the poet writes thus, in a letter dated February 13th, 

 1809: 



&quot; Of real life let me see what I have heard for the last fort 

 night : first, a snake rny friend Telford received a drawing of it 

 has been found thrown on the Orkney Isles ; a sea snake with 

 a mane like a horse, four feet thick, and fifty-five feet long. This 

 is seriously true. Malcolm Laing, the historian, saw it, and sent 

 a drawing of it to my friend.&quot;^ 



Now here we see the great inaccuracy of what may be styled 

 contemporaneous testimony of a highly educated man, who had 

 no motive or disposition to misrepresent facts. From the Wer- 

 rierian Transactions and Mr. Neill s letter, I learn distinctly that 

 Malcolm Laing never went to the shore of Stronsa to see the 

 monster. 



Fortunately, several of the vertebrae were forwarded, in 1809, 

 to Sir Everard Home, in London, who at once pronounced them 

 to belong to the Squalus maximus, or common basking shark. 

 Figures of other portions sent to Edinburgh to Dr. Barclay, were 

 also published by him in the Wernerian Transactions, and agree 

 very Avell with Home s decision, although it is clear, from Bar 

 clay s Memoir, that he was very angry with the English anat 

 omist for setting him right, and declaring it to be a shark. It 

 was indeed very difficult to believe on any but the most con- 

 * Campbell s Life, vol. ii. p. 169, 170. 



