99 WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS, 
to be quite unknown to the neighbouring savants. The honest 
fishermen who drew the struggling monster to land are not, how- 
ever, overscrupulous about the name, provided it be attractive 
enough to extract from the pockets of “ladies and gentlemen 64¢.; 
working people 3d. each’: they therefore boldly announce him as 
“the great sea-serpent caught at last’. My correspondent very 
judiciously observes, that whatever the animal may be, it adds 
another to the many evidences constantly occurring that there are 
more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of by the most 
experienced practical observers. Some thirty five years since, the 
distinguished anatomist Dr. Barclay, was fain to reproach his con- 
temporaries with the folly of affecting to suppose that they knew 
every thing. What additions have five and thirty years not given 
to Science! As the animal in question must be at least a local 
visitor, may we not hope, that some resident naturalist will favour 
us with a notice of it?” 
“The great Sea-Serpent caught at last, by fourteen fishermen, 
off Cullercoats, on Monday last, March 26, 1849. This most 
wonderful monster of the deep was discovered by a crew of fishermen, 
about six miles from the land, who, after a severe struggle, 
succeeded in capturing this, the most wonderful production of the 
mighty deep. This monster has been visited by numbers of the 
gentry and scientific men of Newcastle, and all declare that nothing 
hitherto discovered in Natural History affords any resemblance to 
this. As an object of scientific inquiry, this “great unknown’ must 
prove a subject of peculiar interest. Many surmises as to its habits, 
native shores, etc., have already been made, but nothing is really 
known. The general opinion expressed by those that are best able 
to judge, is, that this is the great sea-serpent, which hitherto has | 
only been believed to have a fabulous existence, but which recent 
voyagers declare they have seen. Now exhibiting, at the shop, 57, , 
Grey Street, opposite the High Bridge. Admission: ladies and gentle- 
men 6d¢., Working people 3d. each.” 
In the J/lustrated London News of May 19, 1849, we find the 
following account of this capture: 
“The Sea-Serpent. — We observe in the Newcastle papers that 
a strange and hitherto unknown fish, nearly 13 feet in length, 
and possessing many of the characteristics which the captain of 
the Daedalus enumerated in his description of the great Sea-Snake, 
has really been caught off the Northumbriam coast, by the Culler- 
coats’ fishermen, and has been exhibited in Newcastle, where it 
