324 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. x. 



of the body, or else it was a vertical one, which is 

 not characteristic of serpents, and further, that no 

 remains had ever been discovered washed up on 

 any coast. He adds : ' Now, a serpent being an 

 air-breathing animal, dives with an effort, and 

 commonly floats when dead, and so would the 

 sea-serpent, until decomposition or accident had 

 opened the tough integument and let out the 

 imprisoned gases. . . . During life the exigencies 

 of the respiration of the great sea-serpent would 

 always compel him frequently to the surface, and 

 when dead and swollen it would 



Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 

 Lie floating many a rood. 



Such a spectacle, demonstrative of the species if 

 it existed, has not hitherto met the gaze of any of 

 the countless voyagers who have traversed the 

 seas in so many directions.' 



On November 9 Owen sent a letter to the 

 ' Times ' in explanation of an account of the great 

 sea-serpent, saying that he was anxious through 

 that paper to give his opinion once for all, as he 

 continued to receive many applications for it. 



Early in 1849 we find him acknowledging the 

 receipt of a communication made to him from the 

 Prince Consort through Sir Charles Phipps on the 

 same subject. In this letter he states his opinion 

 that the ' animal ' seen from the deck of the 

 1 Daedalus ' was the head and track of a great seal, 



