468 THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS, [The 19th. | 
The nineteenth explanation is that of Mr. Artaur Apams (see 
Zoologist, 1860, p. 7237) who believes that a floating dead tree 
“might have become a source of error, and given rise to yet an- 
other sea-serpent”. His article runs as follows: 
“An incident occurred on board the vessel of which I am surgeon, 
which, I think, deserves to be recorded as an illustration of op- 
tical delusion that might have become a source of error, and given 
rise to yet another sea-serpent. We were sailing among the Islands 
of the Miatan group, at the entrance of the Gulf of Pe-Chili. There 
was little wind, and the gentle ripples covered the surface of the 
sea. I was sipping my Congo at the open port of the ward room 
on the main deck, admiring the setting sun, and watching the 
rounded outlines of the blue mountains and distant islands against 
the sky, and the numbers of sea-birds “wheeling rockwards to 
their nests’, when my eye rested on a long dark object apparently 
making its way steadily through the water. After observing it some time 
in silence I was sorely puzzled and could make nothing of it. It 
was neither a seal nor a diver nor a fishing cormorant, for with 
their forms I was familiar; so | went on deck and consulted other 
eyes than mine. Sundry glasses were brought to bear on the sus- 
picious object, and the general scrutiny seemed to decide that it 
was a large snake, about ten feet long (or much longer according 
to some), Steen, its way vigorously against the tide by lateral 
undulations of the body. So strong was this conviction that the 
course of the ship was altered, and a boat got ready for lowering. 
With a couple of loaded revolvers, some boathooks and a fathom 
or so lead-line, I made ready for the encounter, intending to range 
up alongside, shoot the reptile through the head, make him fast 
by a clove-hitch, and tow him on board in triumph! By this 
time, however, a closer and more critical inspection had taken 
place, and the supposed sea-monster turned himself into a long 
dark root, gnarled and twisted, of a tree, secured to the moorings 
of a fishing net, with the strong tide passing it rapidly, and thus 
giving it an apparent life-like movement and serpentine aspect.” 
After Mr. Drew had published in Nature a case, in which he 
and many others were deceived by a large mass of flying shags, 
another contributor Mr. ,E. H. Prineze wrote the following (Nature , 
September 12, 1878): 
“If you Peer space for the allo arti, it 1s so confirmatory of 
Dr. Drew’s experience of an opera-glass dispelling “fond deceits” 
concerning a sea-serpent, that it may be worth recording.” 
