PREFACE. XI 



number (Zool. 2356), announcing the present existence of huge marine 

 animals closely related to the Enaliosauri of by-gone ages, that ap- 

 pears to me in all respects the most interesting Natural-History fact 

 of the present century, completely overturning as it does some of the 

 most favourite and fashionable hypotheses of geological science. The 

 published opinion of M. Agassiz (Zool. 2395) certainly favours the 

 idea that Enaliosaurians may still exist : he says it would be in pre- 

 cise conformity with analogy that an animal should exist in the Ame- 

 rican seas which has long been extinct and fossilized in the eastern 

 hemisphere: he instances the gar-pike of the western rivers, and says 

 that, in a recent visit to Lake Superior, he has detected several fishes 

 belonging to genera now extinct in Europe. 



Scarcely less remarkable is the record of the actual capture and 

 admeasurement of enormous Fishes, allied to the rays, in the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Some of these extraordinary creatures appear to have been 

 at least 23 feet in width, and, including the tail, double that length. 

 The communication on this subject is from Captain C. B. Hamilton, 

 of H.M.S. Frolic, and was most kindly handed me for publication 

 (Zool. 2357) by his brother, Captain Hamilton, Secretary to the Ad- 

 miralty. This valuable record elicited another on the same subject 

 from Mr. Guy on, who relates (Zool. 2396) that a similar monster ray 

 had been seen by Captain Triscott, when in H.M.S. Diana, in the 

 Gulf of Mexico. In an anonymous pamphlet, published during the 

 present year, and containing recitations of most of the newspaper 

 accounts of Sea-Serpents, the authors relate an instance of a ray 

 having been taken near Guadaloupe, which measured twenty feet 

 across the back. These huge fishes bask on the surface of the ocean 

 only in fine summer weather, and move the continuous lateral fins 

 gently up and down. Such a creature, fifty feet in length, seen on 

 the surface, with the sharp pointed head above water, and the long 

 line of fin offering its undulations alone to view, is far more likely to 

 have been denominated a sea-serpent than the floating spars, sharks, 

 sea-weeds and seals, which last year were contending for the honour. 



In the Appendix, a part of the work commencing with the present 



