[The 10th. ] THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 405 
gard to some particulars, in the manner of “Gulliver’s Travels”, 
that many readers were not aware of its being a fabrication. Such 
proof of a disposition to practise on the public credulity, too often 
repeated , necessarily communicate a colouring of insincerity to all 
other reports of strange events emanating from the same source, 
and certainly demand the exercise of an unusual amount of cu- 
cumspection, though they do not justify scepticism, in the case 
now before us.” 
“Making due allowance for these peculiarities in the testimony, 
we may, nevertheless, proceed in a spirit of induction to examine 
into the tendency of the collateral evidence. The question after all, 
when reduced to its simplest form comes to be little more than 
one of geographical distribution. That is to say, that even if we 
chose to confine the animal to the true serpents, which has been 
the ordinary conception heretofore, there is no obvious impediment 
to oppose it, either on the score of want of analogy, or of structural 
incapacity. Amphibiousness, to commence with, in its popular ac- 
ceptation, or the capability of spending a considerable time in the 
water, is one of the most familiar properties of serpents, as illust- 
rated in the common snake (Coluber matrix) and the viper, the 
only two species, if we except the blindworm, ascertained to be 
indigenous to these islands “Snakes”, observes Professor Bell (“His- 
tory of British Reptiles’) “are extremely fond of the water, taking 
to it readily, and swimming with great elegance and ease, holding 
the head and neck above the surface. It is extremely probable that 
they resort to the water in search of frogs.” In the learned System 
of Schlegel, translated by Prof. Traill — “Physiognomy of Serpents ’-— 
members of various ophidian-groups are characterised as living near 
and inhabiting lakes and rivers. Some belong to the genera ‘T'ropi- 
donotus (which here includes the first named British species), and 
Homalopsis, comprised under the head of Fresh Water-Serpents. 
Of the Boas, this author says: “several species frequent fresh water, 
and there are some of them essentially aquatic,” among them the 
Boa murina, the largest of known serpents, and his two species 
of Acrochordus.” 
“Further, and what completely sets at rest the part of the case 
we are now considering, there are swarms of marie ophidians 
inhabiting the warm latitudes of the pacific. These appear to have 
been partly known to the ancients. Aelian informs us that Hydrae 
with flat tails were found in the Indian Seas, and that they also 
existed in the marshes. He also tells us that these reptiles had 
