WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS. 101 
“Did you observe any eyes, nostrils, ears, ear holes, gills, 
whiskers, or any other appendages?” 
“These are all questions which a zoologist wants to have an- 
swered in order to determine somewhat, what animal may have 
been seen by you.” 
Mr. Verscuuur had the courtesy to send me an early answer 
Oct. 30th., 1889. The part of this letter referring to my questions 
runs as follows: 
“I greatly regret to say that my answers will not help you 
much. The distance at which I saw this strange animal was too 
great, and the appearance too short, to observe anything of the 
particulars stated by you.” 
“The part which we saw rise out of the sea had, if my memory 
does not deceive me, the thickness of a full-grown upper-arm, and 
the length of from 1 to 1*/, meter.” | 
“The head seemed to be round, and of the common shape of 
a snakes head, 1. e. having nearly the tapering shape of the 
“cobra” or of the rattlesnake.” 
“Of scales, eyes, fins, etc., | could observe nothing, during this 
short appearance. The colour seemed to me to be a greyish one.” 
“I regret not being able to give you more details than those 
written by me in my book of travels.” 
I think this animal was of the eel-tribe, the dimensions were 
too small even to admit the supposition that it was a spawn of 
the sea-serpent. 
We observe that many so-called great sea-serpents are to be 
explained by reference to snuown animals. There are, however, a 
great many sea-serpents which don’t answer to the description of 
any known being at all, unless we venture upon a suggestion which 
is elther wrong, forced, or premature, and which can be accepted 
only with a smile or a shrug of the shoulders. 
Some sea-serpent explainers are in the habit of explaining one 
single sea-serpent, say by reference to a row of porpoises, and 
then try to account for others by this suggestion, the upshot of 
which is that the explainer does no longer see his way clear of 
the difficulties which beset him, and driven to his wits’ end, cuts 
the Gordian knot, leaving a great many sea-serpents unexplained. 
Others, like Mr. Gossz, Mr. ANnprew Wirson, and Mr. Hxnry 
Lez, were prepossessed with opinions which made of every sea- 
