4.72 THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS, [The 20th. | 
however, to point out that Dr. Drew’s statement cannot be regarded 
as explanatory of the sea-serpent’s personality? At the most the 
incident only explains one of a number of serpentine appearances 
of which porpoises and sunfishes swimming in line, pieces of wood 
with trains of sea-weed, &c., are also good examples. There have 
been placed on record numerous incidents of serpentine forms 
having been closely expected (as in the well-known case of the 
Daedalus, or \ater still of H. M. 8. Osborne) where the hypothesis 
of the serpentine appearances assumed by flocks of birds or fishes 
could not be held as explanatory in any sense. It is with the 
view of showing that the exact personality of the “sea-serpent”’ 
cannot be accounted for by such an incident as Dr. Drew relates, 
that I venture to pen these remarks; and as a firm believer from 
the standpoint of zoology that the large development of the marine 
ophidians of warm seas offers the true explanation of the “sea-ser- 
pent” mystery, I would also ask your readers to distinguish care- 
fully between cases in which serpentine appearances have been 
assumed by ordinary animals, and those in which ove animal 
form has presented itself in the guise of the “great unknown”. 
IT am far from contending that a sea-snake developed in the ratio 
of a giant “cuttle-fish”, presents the only solution of this interest- 
ing problem. A long tape-fish, or even a basking shark of huge 
dimensions, might do duty in the eyes of non-zoological observers 
Ot) sam sea-sclpemie armen cen “At the same time zoologists cannot 
but feel indebted to Dr. Drew, and to those who, like that gent- 
leman, note unwonted appearances in ordinary animal life, and 
somamnennnenis such incidents to your columns.” 
A week afterwards the following article bearing upon the fore- 
going descriptions of flying sea- Tigh, appeared in the same journal 
from the pen of Mr. C.. M. Inexzsy: 
“The letters of Dr. Drew and others remind me of what I wit- 
nessed at Sandgate twenty four years ago. I was staying at a 
cottage on an elevation which commanded an extensive sea-view. 
One morning my attention was called to a large, dark, undulating 
body, which moved rapidly through the sea. As it was some way 
out from shore, I naturally concluded it to be of enormous length. 
I lost no time in making inquiries as to the nature of this phenomenon , 
and was so fortunate as to discover a fisherman who had witnessed — 
it. He told me it was a flight of petrels. But for this I should cer- 
tainly have believed that I had seen the Great Unknown. I have often 
seen a similar phenomenon, but nothing nearly so striking as this.” 
