6988 Fishes, 



even in the present advanced state of marine zoology, their habits, 

 haunts, &c., remain blanks in the Book of Nature, and will probably 

 long continue so, unless opportunities like the present should occur, 

 to enable us to add new facts in the history of these remarkable 

 creatures. 



The most notable fact, however, in connexion with the capture of 

 the present specimen, will doubtless be the interest and attraction it 

 will produce in the scientific world, for most assuredly we have in the 

 specimen now before us many of the peculiarities, save size, with 

 which the appearance of that hitherto apochryphal monster, the 

 " great sea serpent," as detailed by navigators, is invested. The 

 lengthened filaments crowning the caput, joined anteriorly by the 

 connecting membrane, and extending to the shoulders, would, viewed 

 from a vessel's deck, present to the spectator the mane so accurately 

 described as a singular feature in the gigantic specimen seen by 

 Captain McQuhie, R.N. and officers of H.M.S. " Daedalus." Then 

 again, the rapidity with which that individual specimen moved 

 through the water, would coincide with the capabilities of a member 

 of this genus, for the motive power produced by such an extent 

 of tail, coupled with the extremely compressed form of body from the 

 head throughout, must be immense. 



Here then we have a partial elucidation of the various statements 

 which have at intervals appeared in the columns of the united presses 

 of England and America, emanating from the pens of travellers, and 

 usually headed — " Occurrence of the Great Sea Serpent," — criticized, 

 however, in an ungenerous manner, and always exposed to an 

 unmerited ridicule at the hands of the many, but, nevertheless, firmly 

 believed in by the few, who liave patiently waited to see the day 

 when the mystic cloud which has hitherto veiled the existence of the 

 maned denizen of the deep should vanish with the suspicion of the 

 sceptic, and exhibit more clearly the truth of the assertions of those 

 ill-used men, who, endeavouring like useful members of society to 

 extend the cause of natural knowledge by publishing candid accounts 

 of what their eyes have seen, have always met with an amount of con- 

 tempt and reproach, sufficient to silence for ever the pen of many a 

 truthful writer. 



1 am sorry I have not the No. of the ' Illustrated London News ' at 

 hand in which Captain McQuhse's graphic statement appeared, as it 

 would have afforded me an opportunity of particularising other 

 features in connexion with his specimen and the present one. The 



