WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 
(see Lex, Sea Monsters Unmasked, London, 1883). 
I give here a figure of the largest ever found. 
(See our Fig. 6.) 
1808. — Lhe Animal of Stronsa. — Perhaps no 
stranded animal, even the so-called sea-monks of 
the seventeenth and the eighteenth century caused 
such an excitement among the learned as “the 
animal of Stronsa”’. | 
The oldest report of it is certainly a letter 
from Mr. Campsent, in which only the following 
lines refer to it: 
“A snake (my friend TrLrorp received a draw- 
ing of it) has been found thrown on the Orkney- 
Isles, a sea-snake with a mane like a horse, 4 
feet thick and 55 feet long, this is seriously 
true. Mautcorm Laine, the historian saw it, and 
sent a drawing of it to my friend.” 
The letter was first printed in the work en- 
titled: “Life and Letters of Campbell’, and 
afterwards the above quoted lines were reprinted 
in the Zoologist for 1849, p. 2395. 
In the Proceedings of the Meeting of the 
Wernerian Natural History Society on the 19th. 
of November, 1808, printed in the Pholosophical 
Magazine, Vol. 32, p. 190, we read: 
“At this meeting Mr. P. Neri read an account 
of a great Sea-Snake, lately cast ashore in Orkney. 
This curious animal, it appears, was stranded 
in Rothiesholm Bay, in the Island of Stronsa. 
Malcolm Laing, Esq., M. P. being in Orkney 
at the time, communicated the circumstance to 
his brother, Gilbert Laing Hsq., advocate at 
30 
61 
Fig. 6.— The largest calamary ever found, with a scale of 80 feet. 
Edinburgh, on whose property the animal had been cast. Through 
this authentic channel Mr. Neill received his information. The 
body measured fifty five feet in length, and the circumference of the 
thickest part might be equal to the girth of an Orkney pony. The 
head was not larger than that of a seal, and was furnished with two 
blow holes. From the back a number of filaments (resembling in 
