[The 10th. ] THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 417 
phinorhynchus micropterus of Dumortier, two other specimens of 
which only exist, the one stranded at Havre, the other at Ostend. 
Were this animal known only by tradition, it is improbable that 
naturalists would have refused it their sanction, under an impres- 
sion that a species of such individual magnitude could not possibly 
have escaped being captured and subjected of their criticism? And 
yet the recognition of the great Physeter bidens is purely the re- 
sult of an accident !”’ 
“If the reptilian nature of this mysterious creature be supposed 
to have been established, it becomes an interesting speculation to 
consider how far the stories of terrific dragons, transmitted to us 
by the ancients, had their origin in realities with which they were 
more conversant than ourselves. The sea-serpent, if a real existence, 
is of no modern creation. Our forefathers must have seen it. The 
utmost length at present allowed to land-snakes is twenty-five feet 
(Schlegel). Nevertheless, the very important part sustained by the 
serpent in the old mythologies, — its imposing magnitude and 
powers, and celebrated by historians and poets, — and its con- 
sequence in the romantic animals of the middle ages, will unstill 
a suspicion that, perhaps, not the biographers of snakes were men- 
daceous, but their heroes, like those of “the last minstrel’, have 
changed or disappeared in the progress of civilization. It is without 
the slightest idea of attaching any overstrained importance to the 
following passages that I venture to quote them, as proving that 
the idea of serpents frequenting and traversing the sea was at least 
not repugnant to ancient prejudices. The avenging ministers of Mi- 
nerva, crossing the Aegean on their mission to destroy Laocoon, 
might be vindicated by an ardent classic as the model from which 
the moderns have often plagiarised their descriptions of the sea- 
serpent. 
“Hece autem gemini a tenedo ¢ranguilla per alta 
“(Horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues 
“Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt: 
“Pectora quorum iter fluctus arrecta, jubaeque 
“Sanguineae exuperant undas; pars caetera pontum 
“Pone legit, stinuatque immensa volumine terga. 
“Tit sonitus spumante salo”. -— Virgil. —?). 
1) Look, from Tenedos there come down through the quiet see (I shudder in 
telling it) two serpents in enormous coils, moving through the sea, and together 
they direct thernselves to the strand: their chests, held up between the waves, and 
27 
