[1753.] REPORTS AND PAPERS. 131 
that different persons saw the head in different positions, that some 
of them saw it for such a short moment that it was impossible to 
say with certainty what form it had. It is not always explicable 
why one describes the head of an animal in one way and another 
in quite another. As to me I see in the head of a seal that of 
an otter, others distinctly see a man’s or a cat’s head in it, and 
the people in the service of the Zoological Gardens in the Hague 
exclaim “why, I can very well understand why that animal is 
called a sea-dog; it has a dog’s head, to be sure!” The fact is 
that we don’t know with any certainty the form of the sea-ser- 
pent’s head, but most probably it resembles that of a sea-lion, 
which has also a head with a broad and flattened forehead , rather 
pointed, seen from one side, and blunt, seen in front. Here men- 
tion is also made of the large nostrils and the bristles on the lips 
of the animal. | 
“The eyes are, as one says, large and blue, they are rather like 
a pair of pewter plates.” 
The eyes again are described differently. We have already heard 
them described as being black, red as fire, and now they are blue, 
viz. the ordinary blue, called tin-colour, that is a bluish-grey or a 
greyish-blue; so a grey rabit is also called a blue rabit; and grey 
fowls are called blue-fowls; there is rather a lilac tint to be 
observed in it. I cannot explain those differences otherwise than 
in the following way: when an observer sees the eyes in an oblique 
direction, he will always see this grey colour; when more in the 
axis of the eye, the colour is a bright dark black one, and when 
occasionally seen thus that the “tapetum lucidum” of the eye 
reflects the day-light, it is, as if the eyes were sparkling like fire. 
“The serpent’s colour is dark brown over the whole body, but 
thereby spotted, and with light streaks, or maculated with dis- 
tinctly visible light spots, like a turtle or a lackered table, except 
in the region of mouth and eyes where it is rather dark, so that 
it resembles those horses which we call moorish-heads or black-faces.” 
We shall repeatedly have occasion to observe that these state- 
ments are correct. All eye-witnesses agree in this point. 
“That this animal spouts like a whale through its nostrils, as 
Mr. Eexpz saw, has never been seen here by anybody.” 
It is remarkable that though Ecanpr has nowhere asserted that 
his animal was a sea-serpent, our learned Bishop seems to have 
recognized it as such at once, believing, however, it to be another 
species of the same genus. We have already stated that Eexpn did 
