418 THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. (The 10th. | 
“The poet, too, is sustained by the naturalist, for here we have 
Pliny (whose facts by the way deserve to have inspired the apo- 
phthegm that “truth is stranger than fiction’) telling how the Afric- 
an dracones were wont to club together and brave the perils of 
the Red Sea, in quest of the more luxurious diet of Arabia: “Nar- 
ratur in maritimis eorum quaternos quinosque inter se cratium modo 
implexos erectis capitibus velificantes, ad meliora pabula Arabiae — 
vehi fluctibus.” (Plin. Hist. Nat. VIII, 13). 
“On a former occasion (Zool. 1841) I took advantage of the 
rare opportunity afforded for the discussion of the subject by the 
conductor of this journal, for the purpose of showing, first, that 
sea-serpents as a family have long been perfectly recognized in 
science, and that therefore the name itself should inspire no senti- 
ment of ridicule; and next, of remarking that strange as are the 
properties attributed to the great sea-serpent, there are remains of 
a former world in our museums which in their perfect state united 
them all or nearly all. Encouraged by the Editor’s referring them 
to the Enaliosauri [Zool. LIV. Wrapper] I ventured to name the 
Plesiosaurus as the marine animal of our acquaintance to which 
they bear the nearest resemblance. ‘his, although admitted at the 
time to be a daring breach of the Draconic laws of geology, — 
laws, which, having once consigned an organized form to extinction, 
have very rarely relaxed their rigour, — seemed to be a necessary 
result to the argument par voie d exclusion: if not a Plesiosaurus 
what else is it likely to be, allowing the descriptions to be at. all 
correct? Is it an anomolous shark? and does the “animal of Stronsa’’ 
after all furnish the real key to the problem? The affirmative side 
of the question is not without at least two very able supporters 
(see Zool. 2310); and yet how to reconcile the characteristics of 
any possible shark with the sea-serpent-like head, curved neck, 
mane, or certainly very equivocal dorsal fin, and the protuberances 
so often mentioned, it is difficult to imagine. A recent correspondent 
of the “Times” (Zool. 2311) calls attention to the striking resem- 
blance between the sea-serpent and the Plesiosaurus, and is sur- 
their blood-red mane are held above the waves; the remaining part lashes the sea, 
and they bent their immense backs in coils. There arises a noise, whilst the ocean 
skims. — Vergilius, Aeneis, II, 203, sqq. 
1) «And (the Asachaeans) tell that near their coasts every time four or five of 
these (dragons) twisted together in the way of a twisted work, and sailing with 
their heads erected in the air, sail on the waves towards a better provender place 
of Arabia.” 
