| N°. 29, REPORTS AND PAPERS. 147 
he had a serpent’s head, of a colour as blue as possible, and a 
black ring round his eye. The head was three feet in circumference 
at least. Who ever saw fifty or sixty porpoises moving after each 
other in a right line, and in such a manner that those who formed 
the rear were no larger than haddock or mackerel, and none but 
the foremost shewed his head? Who ever saw a serpent’s head 
upon a porpoise or whale? We saw him swim as far as from Long 
Island to the Cape before he disappeared. His head and neck all 
the time out of water. Now who ever saw a porpoise swim so 
great a distance without immerging at all? This is the best in- 
formation which you can obtain from 
“Your Friend and Servant” 
“ABRAHAM CUMMINGS.” 
“Rev. ALDEN BrapDrForp.” 3 
“PS. The head and neck of the animal were of the same 
colour.” 
The first apparently mexplicable fact is that Mr. Cummines 
declares the colour of the head and neck first “blue’, then “as 
blue as possible,” and a few years afterwards “a bluish green.” 
But I think that we must not rely too much upon this definition 
of the colour, for, as we observe in daily life, different persons 
will give different names to a dark colour; some will call a nearly 
black colour “blue” while another does not see any blue in it at 
all; consequently we may safely suppose that the colour was the 
common dark brown, nearly black one, and that Mr. Cummines 
called such a colour “as blue as possible’ or “a bluish green.” 
Yet it is probable that the colour of sea-serpents may sometimes 
vary aS in our common seals. 
It is a fact that claims our close attention that the first impres- 
sion the animal made upon him was “to be a large shoal of fish” 
(read “porpoises’) “with a head of a seal at one end of it, but 
wondered that the seal should rise out of water so much higher than 
usual’. Here we have an almost faithful picture of the common 
appearance of the animal, which reminds us of Mr. Benstrup’s 
figure (fig. 24). But as the serpent drew nearer to Mr. Cummines’ 
boat, the resemblance diminished , because the serpent has not such 
thick upper lips as our common seal, so that the snout is rather 
sharp, and the forehead being moreover flat, the resemblance is 
also that of a snake’s head! The mode of swimming was up and 
down, and Mr. Cummines in his second letter says “it appeared 
so to us, his real motion might be horizontal’. Mr. Cummines 
