WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 95 
moving it up and down, sometimes showing his enormous neck , 
which was surmounted with a huge crest in the shape of a saw. 
It was surrounded by hundreds of birds, and we at first thought 
it was a dead whale. He left a track in the water like the wake 
of a boat, and from what we could see of the head and part of 
his body, we were led to think he must be about sixty feeth in 
length, but he might be more. The captain kept the vessel away 
to get nearer to him, and when we were within a hundred yards 
he slowly sank into the depths of the sea. While we were at 
dinner he was seen again, and a midshipman took a sketch of 
him, of which I will send you a copy.” — The Times. 
Mr. Gossz, in his Romance of Natural History, 1% Series, p. 
311, says of these rapports: 
“The descriptions, however, show great TRH Ey with that of 
the creature, seen from the Daedalus” (see report n°. 118 in the 
next phapter) “and cannot be considered confirmatory of the former 
account, otherwise than as proving that immense unrecognized 
creatures of elongate form roam the ocean.” 
“Mr. Alfred Newton, of Elveden Hall, an excellent and well- 
known naturalist, adds the guarantee of his personal acquaintance 
with one of the recipients of the above letters.” 
“I note this, because discredit has been undeservedly cast on 
the phenomena observed, by foolish fabulous stories having been 
published under fictitious names, for the purpose of hoaxing.”’ 
“If it were not for the spouting — which is not mentioned by one 
observer, and may possibly have been an illusion, — I should be 
inclined to think that this may have been one of the scabbard 
fishes, specimens of which inhabit the ocean of immense size. They 
carry a high serrated dorsal fin, and swim with the head out of 
the water.” 
By inserting these reports in the present chapter, I already 
show my readers, that I agree with Mr. Gossr, that this animal 
cannot have been a sea-serpent. 
I confess that I am unable to give a decisive answer to the 
question as to what kind of animal it really was. Apparently the 
most plausible explanation is that given by Mr. Goss, viz., that 
it was a riband or scabbard fish. The dorsal fin which in these 
kind of fishes begins at the occiput, is red or crimson coloured , 
and serrated, so that it may have given rise to the expressions of 
“a crest like a cock’s comb’, and “a huge crest in the shape of 
a saw. But riband fishes are deep-sea fishes. When floating on 
