PREFACE. XI 



hypothesis. Professor Owen lays great stress on the non-existence 

 of ophidian vertebrae ; but as only two ophidians have yet entered the 

 arena as competitors for the title of sea-serpent, — Saccopharynx fla- 

 gellum, which I have heard is a bona Jide black snake, and Boa con- 

 strictor, which is received on all hands as a veritable serpent, — I 

 think the absence of ophidian vertebrae- is of no great moment. The 

 Sauria offer similar coincidences with the Ophidia, and present a simi- 

 lar discrepancy : their heads and necks might readily be described by 

 general observers as those of snakes or serpents, but the undulating 

 motion with which they swim is almost precisely similar to that of 

 snakes, and holds equally good as an objection to our marine monster 

 entering their ranks. The Crocodilia and Chelonia have next to be 

 considered, and these truly possess the submerged limbs requisite for 

 propulsion in a direct course along the surface of the water ; more- 

 over, natatorial undulation of the vertebral column in crocodiles is 

 highly improbable, in turtles absolutely impossible : hence, as far as 

 aquatic progression is concerned, these reptiles agree more aptly than 

 any other known living animals with the recently-published descrip- 

 tions of so-called sea-serpents. Yet the comparatively compact form 

 of both crocodiles and turtles, and especially the orbicular figure of 

 the latter, quite preclude the idea of their being described — even by 

 the veriest tyro in observation — as snakes of a hundred feet in 

 length ; again, in both crocodiles and tortoises floating on the surface 

 of water, the back, and not the head and neck, must be the part 

 most prominently and permanently visible. It is therefore mani- 

 fest that no existing group of reptiles answers the conditions 

 required by the recently-recorded descriptions of the sea-serpent. 



Finally, among Fishes, the mind turns very willingly to the sharks 

 as offering a solution of the problem ; and the record respecting the 

 sea-serpent of Stronsa (Zool. 2320) has given great weight to this 

 view, adopted as it has been by such eminent naturalists as Doctors 

 Man tell and Melville (Zool. 2310). With regard to the Stronsa ani- 

 mal, I entertain very grave doubts of the decision in question : it cer- 

 tainly does not seem to have possessed the vertebrae of an ophidian, 

 but then no naturalist desires to make it one : the boa hypothesis is 



