WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 89 
water (taken from Mr. Henry Ler’s Sea-Monsters Unmasked, 1883, 
corrected, however, as to its proportions), and now my readers 
most probably will agree with me that such an animal has been 
seen. The hillocks of the short arms make the appearance of a long 
undulating body. The body of such an animal is quite scarlet or 
crimson, and the tail (the so-called head) is acute. 
1822, June. — In Frorimp’s Wofizen of 1822, III, we read: 
“Some time ago the American newspapers were filled with the 
reports of a sea-serpent which showed itself in the neighbourhood. 
Also more than a year ago an animal was caught, supposed to be 
such a one, which, however, was recognized as a large tunny. It 
appears by the New-York newspaper of June 15th., that such an 
animal taken for a great sea-serpent has been caught in a bay near 
Middleton-Point. This monster measured thirty feet and has a 
circumference of 18 feet. It had already been seen for some days, 
floating like a huge trunk. Some persons had fired at it with guns, 
but without any result. Having got into shallow water it could 
not regain the high sea, was killed with harpoons, towed aland 
and flayed. The liver alone produced three barrels of train-oil. It 
took six men two hours to drag the skin, which will be stuffed, 
to a distance of about 200 yards off. None of the old whalemen 
and seamen who saw the animal, knew it. There were no guts (?) 
and there was no heart (??). In the beak six rows of small sharp 
teeth were counted and the throat was wide enough for a tall 
man to pass. The skin was lead coloured and could be used as a 
stone for sharpening knives (apparently an unusual large shark ?)” 
About the tunny I allow myself to refer the reader to our fig. 
1. — We immediately agree with Mr. Frorrep that this animal 
was a large shark. Evidently it was dead, “floating some days 
like a huge trunk”. The reason that no whaleman recognized the 
animal, that neither guts nor heart was found, is of course to be 
found in the fact that the animal was putrified, irrecognizable, and 
had already lost its guts and some other entrails. Evidently it was 
a basking-shark, Squalus maximus (See our fig. 8). The length of 
30 feet and girth of 18 feet is normal in this species. Norwegian 
fishermen harpoon it to procure the train-oil from the liver. The 
teeth are comparatively small and conical, the skin is lead coloured 
and can really be used as a whet-stone. — 
