* Evidence ' of Sea-Serpents 167 



Another large amount of printed stuff has been 

 contributed by persons urgently in need of something 

 to do, who have compiled their amazing stories from 

 hearsay. Many of these contributors are clergymen, 

 and it is no exaggeration to say that their stories, 

 having only some casual remarks of a careless seafarer 

 for text, surpass in wildness of elaboration even the 

 yarns invented with intent to deceive. 



Then comes a much smaller quantity, the evidence 

 of those who have seen something, and earnestly desire 

 to record what they have seen truthfully, but from 

 inability to describe accurately, or deficient power of 

 observation, or imagination heightened by alarm, or 

 all these reasons (and more) combined, only succeed 

 in misleading. A splendid instance of this is given 

 in the report of a Sea-serpent (?) seen off Portland 

 Light, New Zealand, on August i, 1891, from the deck 

 of the s.s. ' Rotomahana.' Peter Nelson, a quarter- 

 master, says that the head was like that of an eel. It 

 rose thirty feet out of water. It had fins about ten 

 feet long, situated on either side of the body (which 

 bulged about there) twenty feet behind the snout. It 

 was the colour of an eel on the back, but the belly and 

 fins were pure white. 



I have condensed the very prolix report, but this 

 is the substance of it. And I believe that Peter Nelson 

 was a perfectly honest and truthful man who described 

 as best he could the ' breaching ' or uprising half-way 

 out of water of a humpbacked whale (Megaptera), an 

 exceedingly common sight on that coast. He says 

 indeed that it was nothing like a whale, but if his 

 description is as accurate as I believe it is, what he 

 saw exactly represents the behaviour and appearance 

 of a humpback gambolling on the sea-surface as usual. 

 Yet because of the lack of previous observation on 



