406 THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. [The 10th.] 
very sharp teeth, and appeared to be venomous. According to 
Ctesias, the serpents of the river Argada in the province of Sitta- 
cene, remain concealed at the dottom of the water during the day, 
and by night they attack persons who go to bath or wash linnen” 
(Griffith in Cuvier). Schlegel has no less than seven species collected 
under the generic name of Hydrophis, constituting his family of 
Sea-Snake —,; they are especially fitted for aquatic life, having 
the nostrils directed vertically and furnished with valves, and the 
tail flattened like an oar; they reside in the sea exclusively, never 
gomg on land, and are supposed to prey on fishes. Their limits 
belong to the intertropical regions of the Indian Seas, or of the 
Great Pacific Ocean.” 
“The existence of dona fide sea-serpents being therefore a matter 
of notoriety, (and preserved specimens are to be seen at any time 
on the shelves of the British Museum), we have but to address 
ourselves to the subordinate inquiry, whether there be sufficient 
reason for assigning to any of the family a habitat in the North 
Atlantic Ocean. And here it is necessary to put away all that idea 
of deviation from the common order of Nature, which could con- 
nect the evidence heretofore given with some isolated excressence 
so to speak, of the animal kingdom. The great size attributed to 
them has doubtless, served very materially to produce an infavou- 
rable impression. Schlegel limits the extreme length of the greatest 
known serpent to twenty-five feet, although such naturalists as 
Cuvier and Milne-Edwards allow an extension of thirty or forty 
feet to some of the Boas. These estimates do not fail so far short 
of those contended for in the present instance as to form an insu- 
perable ground of objection. Many witnesses whose character and 
station in life command respect, whatever judgment may be formed 
of their powers of correct observation, profess to be fully persuaded 
that they have seen immense creatures, resembling serpents, in the 
vicinity of the European or the American shores. The several de- 
positions from Norway that appeared in the “Zoologist”’ of February 
last, comprised the testimony not only of fishermen, drawing their 
subsistence from the sea, and familiar with the more prevalent 
forms of the inhabitants, but of a class commonly presumed to 
be well educated, as merchants, clergymen, and a surgeon. ‘Their 
observations indeed vary on the subject of length (varying between 
forty and one hundred feet), and likewise on some of the details 
of outline, so that they may either relate to different specimens, 
or to deceptive phenomena producing dissimilar impressions , which- 
