Reptiles. 2317 



Captain M'Quhse to the Admiralty (Zool. 2307), allows of no other alternative than 

 either to admit the evidence, or invent some still more extraordinary hypothesis to ex- 

 plain it away. The form and bearings of the stranger have been duly reported at 

 head quarters, and no more deserve to be called in question, as regards the fidelity of 

 the narrator, than the existence of any commissioned " Snake " or " Anaconda," whose 

 station and appointments we find recorded in the daily press. No preternatural mes- 

 senger in " the shape that tempted Eve," — he passes by on the other side without 

 manifesting the slightest degree of interest in human affairs ; no phantom progeny of 

 light and air, although affecting latterly the same haunts as the " Flying Dutchman," 

 — he steers himself by compass, and is the herald of no signal disaster ; no herd of 

 porpoises disporting all in a row, and joined together by some Dadalian process of 

 imagination into the semblance of unity— his head is " decidedly that of a snake," — 

 he carries it for twenty minutes at a time out of the water ; and his body is seen for a 

 continuous length of sixty feet on a level with the surface. From the standard jest of 

 the witty, and the discarded problem of the wise, he has shown himself likely to be 

 " no joke " for his physical prowess, and well deserving the gravest scientific inquiry. 



To show what a formidable and unyielding front has been heretofore opposed to 

 him, I shall quote a passage from the article under the head of ' Serpents,' in the last 

 edition of the ' Encyclopedia Britannica ' (1842) : " No proper proof has yet been ad- 

 duced of any of these species (sea-serpents) inhabiting the ' American Ferry,' as we 

 see that world of waters now named since the steaming days of the British Queen and 

 Great Western. M. Schlegel characterises the statement as an assertion que je puis 

 contredire avec certitude ;" and the author adds, " we shall content ourselves by stating 

 that sea-serpents have not yet been observed in the Atlantic Ocean." The following 

 notice occurs in a popular compilation of the animal kingdom just issued from the 

 press (1848) : " Sea-serpent (or the Kraken). The appearance of this fabulous monster 

 is thus accounted for by Mr. A. Adams. In the Sooloo seas I have often watched the 

 phenomenon which first gave rise to the marvellous stories of the great sea-serpent, 

 viz., lines of rolling porpoises resembling a long string of buoys oftentimes extending 

 seventy, eighty, or one hundred yards. These constitute the so-named protuberances 

 of the monster's back, keep in close single file, progressing rapidly along the calm 

 surface of the water," &c. Had the fabulous serpent in iEsop, who complained of 

 being " a multis hominibus pessumdatus," been aware of what was laid up in the fates 

 for his aquatic relative, no doubt he would have ceased to repine at his own hard lot. 



The official corroboration of the fundamental truth of these " marvellous stories " 

 is important, not only because the author under the circumstances must at least receive 

 credit for the most entire sincerity, but from the encouragement thus given to other 

 credible witnesses to bring forward their evidence. There is no reason to suppose 

 that even this would have been readily laid before the public, but for the desire ex- 

 pressed by the Board of Admiralty to learn the truth of an accidental rumour. As 

 regards any additional light thrown on the natural history of the animal, it is not more 

 satisfactory than many of the accounts we already possess. Indeed the paragraphs 

 which precede the captain's letter in the ' Zoologist,' viz., the extract from the journal 

 of Lieut Drummond, and the first public rumour as it appeared in the ' Times,' tend 

 rather to confuse the official statement, and will no doubt be used to create suspicions 

 of its accuracy. The communication which follows it, purporting to give a report of 

 another specimen seen by an American captain, is supposed to be a " hoax," and as 

 such is worthy of preservation from the ingenuity it displays. 



VI 3 A 



