WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 99 
his new species, and adds that he is not competent to express an 
opinion upon the similarity of Regalecus Jonesu to Capt. M.’ Quuan’s 
sea-serpent. 
1878. — The Scotsman of September 6th. of this year has in- 
serted in its columns the following account. 
“A Baby Sea-Serpent. — From Van Diemen’s Land comes news 
of the capture of a queer fish. It is fourteen feet long, fifteen 
inches deep from the neck to the belly, tapering two inches to the 
tail, and eight inches in diameter in the thickest place. There are 
no scales, but the skin is like polished silver, with eighteen dark 
limes and rows of spots running from the head to the tail each 
side. There is a mane on the neck twenty inches long, and con- 
tinues from the head to the tail; small head, no teeth, protrusive 
mouth, capable of being extended four inches like a sucker; eyes 
flat, about the size of a half crown, and like silver, with black 
pupils. There are two feelers under the chin, thirty-two inches 
long. The fish was alive when captured.” 
Mr. Anprew Witson who communicated this capture in Nature 
of the 12th. of September, 1878, Vol. XVIII, thinks that this 
account “seems explicable only on the tape fish theory.” I think 
he might have written “cs explicable only on the tape fish theory”, 
or in short: “this was evidently a tape fish.” A tape fish is ident- 
ical to a ribband fish. Though these fishes are deep-sea fishes , 
some species evidently don’t live at great depth, and are occasion- 
ally cast ashore after a storm, as had also happened, in 1860, 
on the Bermudas (see hereabove). | 
1879, December 23. — (G. Verscuuur, Hene reis rondom de 
wereld in 480 dagen, p. 51.) 
On the 21st. of December, 1879, Mr. Verscnuur on board the 
Granada, \eft Mazatlan, a harbour on the western coast of Mexico, 
for San Francisco. Probably on the 23d. the Granada passed Cape 
San Lucas at 23° N. lat. Mr. Verscuuur says: 
“Past Cape San Lucas, one afternoon, as I am gazing at the 
ocean surface, I see a long neck rising out of the water very close 
to the ship. I beckon some other passengers. who are on deck, 
and after a few minutes the object in question appears a second 
