[The 18th. ] THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 4.61 
The eighteenth explanation is attempted by Mr. A. G. Mors 
(see Zoologist for 1856, p. 4948). He writes as follows: 
“The sea-serpent having again risen phoenix-like from the deep, 
in the pages of the “Zoologist’’, it may perhaps be pardonable to 
sollicit insertion for the following attempt at explaining his reality, 
in some at least of the many instances of his reported appearance. 
Any one who has looked at the preserved remains of the great 
ribband or scabbard fishes, or who has ever read the striking ac- 
counts of the huge size they sometimes attain, as well as their 
extreme rarety, may, like myself, have been thus reminded of 
those mysterious sea-monsters which are occasionally observed by 
the unlearned to be no less a puzzle to learned opinion. When, 
too, we know that these fishes are supposed often to swim at the 
surface, and thus to be driven ashore more readily, when the only 
example of whose healthy lite we have a credible account, is des- 
cribed as advancing head above water, and by the undulating 
movement of his body (Yarrell, Vol. 1. p. 177), may we not 
reasonably suppose that there exists other and more gigantic forms 
of this most interesting race at yet uncaptured, and such as might 
easily simulate, in the waving of their long dorsal fin, the so 
called “mane’”’ of the great sea-snake.”’ 
The ribband or scabbard fish theory is briefly treated of by Mr. 
Gossz in his Romance of Natural History in the following terms: 
“There are, however, the ribbon-fishes; and some of these, as 
the hair-tail, the Vaegmaer, and the Gymunetrus, are of large size, 
and slender sword-like form. Several kinds have been found in the 
North Atlantic, and, wherever seen, they invariably excite wonder 
and curiosity. All of these are furnished with a back-fin; but in 
other respects they little correspond with the descriptions of the 
animal in question. One of their most striking characteristics, 
moreover, is, that their surface resembles polished steel or silver.” 
In 1860 a ribbon-fish of large dimensions was captured on Ber- 
mudas Isles. Mr. Trimmncuam, the captor, placed it at the disposal 
of Mr. J. Marruew Jonus, a naturalist living there. This gentle- 
man described the animal for the Zoologist, in which his paper 
appeared in the volume of that year (p. 6986). Now Mr. Jonrs 
ended his article as follows: 
“The most notable fact however, in connection with the capture 
of the present specimen, will doubtless be the interest and attraction 
it will produce on the scientific world, for most assuredly we have 
in the specimen now before us many of the peculiarities, safe 
