340 THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS , [N°. 144. | 
is to be ascribed to their attachment to members of their family 
and to their warlike character and hatred of their enemies, to 
help each other im danger, and so the captain’s statement is 
quite correct: “the two others attempted to release their compan- 
ion” and after the disappearance of the combatants “swam away , 
exhibiting signs of the greatest terror’; here we may safely read 
“fury, probably they followed on the surface their companion which 
was beneath it, perceptible to them, but invisible to the spectators 
of the Pauline. 
It is, however, more probable that the sea-serpent, feeling itself 
free for a moment, suddenly escaped, dived and was followed by 
the sperm-whale. 
It is now the right moment to say some words about the figures. 
I will be short, only observing that they are not worth our atten- 
tion. The sketches were evidently drawn in October and December, 
consequently more than three and five months after the encounter. 
It is impossible that they can give an exact representation. 
Mr. Anprew Witson in his Lezsure Time Studies is of another 
opinion than I, as to the fight; for he declares: “..... to my 
mind, the only feasible explanation of the narrative of the crew of 
the Pauline must be founded on the idea that the animals observed 
by them were gigantic snakes. The habits of the animals in attack- 
ing the whales, evidently point to a close correspondence with those 
of terrestrial serpents of large size, such as the boas and pythons”. 
The reader will understand that I do not wish to contest Mr. Wir- 
SON'S opinion. 
$45. — 1875, July 13. — Now we come to the second state- 
ment of the same report, viz. the encounter with the animal on 
the 13th. of July. 
On that day another or the same individual was seen again shoot- 
ing itself along the surface horizontally, forty feet of its body 
being out of the water at a time. Consequently the animal swam 
with its body in a straight line, and not with vertical undulations. 
Again on the same day, it was seen once more, with its body 
standing quite perpendicular some sixty feet in the air, and evid- 
ently taking a survey towards the vessel. This case is nearly the 
same as that which Eerpr witnessed in 1734 near Gothaab. As it 
is often reported that whales and sperm-whales, when coming from 
the depths, do so with such an astonishing force and rapidity that 
