[The 13th. ] THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 4A5 
as were possible from a zoological point of view, and came to the 
conclusion that the sea-serpent must be a mammal, with four 
flappers, a Jong neck and a Jong and pomted tail, and that the 
position of this marine mammal is between dolphins and pinnipeds. 
Was there such an animal known? Yes, the Zeuglodon cetoides of 
Prof. Ricoarp Owen. Well, as the sea-serpent has the outlines of 
a Plesiosaurus, with an enormous tail, he called it Zeuglodon 
plesiosauroides. At that time he was the dupe of the Stronsa animal 
and of the alleged capture of 1852, because, like so many other 
writers on the subject, he believed that he could solve the difficult 
question without reading, if not all that had been written about 
the animal, at least much more than some few reports! 
The fourteenth explanation is that of an anonymous writer in 
one of the public papers of about the sixth of November, 1848. 
Amidst the excitement, caused by the reports of Capt. M’QuHaz 
and Lieutenant Drummonp, he asks whether or not the animal 
could be a full grown specimen of Saccopharynx flagellum of Dr. 
MitcHitt or the Ophiognathus ampullaceus of Harwoop. I have 
only to tell my readers that these two names are given to two 
different species of the same genus, that the former attains a length 
of about five, the latter of about six feet, and to give the next 
figure, in order to enable them to judge themselves, whether such 
an animal could ever have shown itself in the form of a sea-serpent! 
They belong to the family of the Muraénidae. 
Fig. 68. — Hurypharynx pelecanoides , Vaillant. 
