82 WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 
Head; but in a few days a violent gale from the S. E. cast it on 
shore in a creek near the headland, where it remained for some 
time tolerably entire; and it was subsequently broken up by the 
fury of the waves. Before it was thus broken into several pieces it 
was examined, and measured by several intelligent inhabitants of 
the Island; and their testimony collected as above stated was for- 
warded to London, Edinburgh, etc. The declarations were , however, 
accompanied by a very absurd drawing of the animal, which was 
thus produced. Many days elapsed ere the tempestuous weather 
allowed any communication with other Islands; and when the 
storm abated, a young man was sent from Kirkwall by Mr. Laing, 
to collect what information he could on the subject. But by this 
time the body of the animal was completely broken up. This lad , 
who was no draughtsman, and ignorant of Natural History, endeav- 
oured, from the descriptions of those who had seen the animal 
most entire, to delineate with chalk on a table a figure of the 
animal. The rude figure so produced was transferred by pencil to 
paper, and copies of it were handed about as real representations 
of the animal.’ ) 
“That it had a general resemblance to the animal was admitted 
by those who had seen it; but from the accounts I afterwards 
obtamed, it would appear that the joimted legs, which the lad 
had attached to it, are creations of his own imagination.” 
“The appendages, which gave rise to this strange representation, 
were never called legs by those who saw the animal, but were 
denominated by them wings or jims or swimming paws. “That 
nearest the head was broader than the rest, about four-and-a-half 
feet in length, and was edged all round with bristles or fibres, 
about ten inches long’. The “lower jaw was wanting when it was 
cast ashore, but there remained cartilaginous teeth in portions of 
the jaws’. Before it was discovered putrefaction had commenced , 
especially in the jis. The animal had a long and slender neck, 
on which there were two spiracles on each side.” 
“The wings would seem to have been the remains of fins, 
altered by incipient decomposition. The six may perhaps be remains 
of pectoral, abdominal, and anal fins, and perhaps they may have 
been placed, like those of some of the shark family, farther from 
the centre of the abdomen than in ordinary fishes. Indeed one of | 2 
the witnesses states that “the wings of the animal were jointed to 
the body nearer the ridge of the back than they appear in the 
Levels) 
drawing”. 
