[The 18th. | THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 465 
clined to view the giant he had captured with distrust and ordered 
the fish to be cut im pieces and thrown overboard; but it is also 
worthy of remark that the trawlers seemed to express no great 
surprise at the size of Lord Norbury’s specimen, since they asserted 
that they had met with one much larger, this latter being coloured 
of a dirty-brown hue.” 
He also explains the animal of the Osborne (n°. 148) by reference 
to a ribbon-fish in the following terms: 
“1 thought the opportunity a favourable one for offering a reason- 
able explanation of the circumstance, and I communicated my views 
to the 7imes in the following terms, the letter appearing in that journal 
for June 15, 1877: — “About a year ago I ventilated in the columns 
of several journals the idea that the “sea-serpents” so frequently 
seen, were in reality giant tape-fishes or ribbon-fishes. While not 
meaning by this statement to exclude the idea that other animals, — 
such as giant sea-snakes themselves , — may occasionally personate 
the “sea-serpent’, I am, as a zoologist, fully convinced that very 
many of the reported appearances of sea-serpents are explicable on 
the supposition that giant tape-fishes — of the existence of which 
no reasonable doubt can be entertained — have been seen. The 
report of Captain Pearson, of the royal yacht Osborne, appears, 
as far as zoological characters are concerned, to be fully explained 
on the “ribbon-fish” theory. The long back fins, the scale-less 
skin, the rounded head, and lastly, the two great side (or pectoral) 
fins, each measurmg many feet in length, all form so many details 
corresponding exactly to the appearance of a great tape-fish. I offer 
these observations with the view of showing that, given a recital 
founded, as I believe the present narrative to be, on fact, we 
possess in the lists of living and of well-known animals adequate 
representatives of the great unknown.” 
“The imperfect view obtained of the body renders the expression 
contained in the report, that the body was “like that of a gigan- 
tic turtle’, somewhat problematical as to its correctness; and in 
the absence of more defined information, does not necessarily in- 
validate the views expressed above as to the personality of this 
strange tenant of the Mediterranean Sea.” 
“In an article entitled “Strange Sea Creatures,” which appeared 
in the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1877, Mr. R. A. Proctor, 
speaking of my views regarding the sea-serpent, remarks that I 
offer “as an alternative only the ribbon-fish. This observation being 
hardly correct, | may point out that in the article in Good Words, 
30 
