Sea-Serpent. 1843 



fresh water, and there are some of them essentially aquatic," among them the Boa 

 murina, the largest of known serpents, and his two species of Acrochordus. 



Further, and what completely sets at rest the part of the case we are now consider- 

 ing, there are swarms of marine ophidians inhabiting the warm latitudes of the Pacific. 

 These " appear to have been partly known to the ancients. (Elian informs us that 

 Hydrae with flat tails were found in the Indian Seas, and that they also existed in the 

 marshes. He also tells us that these reptiles had very sharp teeth, and appeared to 

 be venomous. According to Ctesias, the serpents of the river Argada, in the province 

 of Sittacene, remain concealed at the bottom of the water during the day, and by night 

 they attack persons who go to bathe or wash linen." (Griffith in Cuvier). Schlegel 

 has no less than seven species collected under the generic name of Hydrophis, con- 

 stituting his family of sea-snakes ; they are especially fitted for aquatic life, having 

 the nostrils directed vertically and furnished with valves, and the tail flattened like an 

 oar ; they reside in the sea exclusively, never going on land, and are supposed to prey 

 on fishes. Their limits belong to the intertropical regions of the Indian Seas, or of 

 the great Pacific Ocean. 



The existence of bona fide sea-serpents being therefore a matter of notoriety, (and 

 preserved specimens are to be seen at any time on the shelves of the British Museum), 

 we have but to address ourselves to the subordinate inquiry, whether there be suffi- 

 cient reason for assigning to any of the family a habitat in the North Atlantic Ocean. 

 And here it is necessary to put away all that idea of deviation from the common order 

 of nature, which would connect the evidence heretofore given with some isolated ex- 

 crescence, so to speak, of the animal kingdom. The great size attributed to them 

 has, doubtless, served very materially to produce an unfavorable impression. Schlegel 

 limits the extreme length of the greatest known serpent to twenty-five feet, although 

 such naturalists as Cuvier and Milne- Edwards, allow an extension of thirty or forty 

 feet to some of the Boas. These estimates do not fall so far short of those contended 

 for in the present instance as to form an insuperable ground of objection. Many 

 witnesses, whose character and station in life command respect, whatever judgment 

 may be formed of their powers of correct observation, profess to be fully persuaded 

 that they have seen immense creatures, resembling serpents, in the vicinity of the 

 European or the American shores. The several depositions from Norway that appeared 

 in the ' Zoologist' for February last, comprise the testimony not only of fishermen, 

 drawing their subsistence from the sea, and familiar with the more prevalent forms of 

 its inhabitants, but of a class commonly presumed to be well educated, as merchants, 

 clergymen, and a surgeon. Their observations indeed vary on the subject of length 

 (varying between forty and one hundred feet), and likewise on some of the details of 

 outline, so that they may either relate to different specimens, or to deceptive phe- 

 nomena producing dissimilar impressions, whichever alternative the critic may be in- 

 clined to prefer. The first notice, transmitted by an English gentleman, holding a 

 responsible appointment under the Crown in one of our transatlantic dependencies, is 

 calculated to supply any deficiency on the part of the new hemisphere, so far as a faith- 

 ful representation of what was submitted to the eye alone may remain a desideratum. 

 But for the resolution manifested in this periodical, to allow the question a fair hear- 

 ing on its sterling merits, there can be little doubt that this testimony would not have 

 been forthcoming ; like, in all probability, more of the same ingenuous stamp, which 

 the unwillingness of the principals to oppose the current of public opinion, directly 



