Hep t iles. 



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neck moving like lhat of a swan, about the thickness of a man's waist, with a head 

 like a horse, raised itself slowly and gracefully from the deep, and seeing the ship it 

 immediately disappeared again, head foremost, like a cluck diving. He saw it only for a 

 few seconds; the part above water seemed about eighteen feet in length. He is a 

 singularly intelligent man, and by no means one to allow his imagination to run away 

 with him. — Stephen Cave, M.P. for Skoreham ; 35, Wilton Place, April 29, 1861 ; 

 in a letter to Mr. Gosse. 



The Sea Serpent. — On a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of August, above a 

 hundred persons, at that time in and about the hotel, were called on to observe an 

 extraordinary appearance in the sea, at no great distance from the shore. Large 

 shoals of small fish were rushing landwards in great commotion, leaping from the 

 water, crowding on each other, and showing all the common symptoms of flight from 

 the pursuit of some wicked enemy. I had already more than once remarked this 

 appearance from the rocks, but in a minor degree ; and on these occasions I could 

 always distinguish the shark, whose ravages among the " manhaidens " was the cause 

 of such alarm. But the particular case in question was far different from those. The 

 pursuer of the fugitive shoals soon became visible ; and that it was a huge marine 

 monster, stretching to a length quite beyond the dimensions of an ordinary fish, was 

 evident to all the observers. No one, in short, had any doubt as to its being the sea 

 serpent, or one of the species to which the animal or animals so frequently before seen 

 belonged. The distance at which this one was, for ten minutes or a quarter of an 

 hour, visible, made it impossible to give a description of its apparent dimensions so 

 accurate as to carry conviction to the sceptical. For us who witnessed it, it was 

 enough to be convinced that the thing was a reality. But one of the spectators, 

 Dr. Amos Binney, a gentleman of scientific attainments, drew up a minute account 

 of it, which is deposited in the archives of one of the Philosophical Societies of Boston. 

 I was and am quite satisfied lhat on this occasion I had a partial and indistinct but 

 positive view of this celebrated nondescript ; but had the least doubt rested on my 

 mind it would have been entirely removed by the event of the day following the one 

 just recorded. On that day, a little before noon, my wire was sitting, as was her wont, 

 reading on the upper piazza of the hotel. She was alone. The gentlemen, including 

 myself and my son, were, as usual, absent at Boston, and the ladies were scattered 

 about in various directions. She was startled by a cry from the house of " The sea- 

 serpent ! the sea-serpent !" But this had been so frequent, by the way of joke, since 

 the event of the preceding day, and was so like "The wolf! the wolf!" of the fable 

 that it did not attract her particular attention for a moment or two, until she observed 

 two women belonging to the family of the hotel keeper running along the piazza 

 towards the corner nearest the sea, with wonder in their eyes, and the cry of " The 

 serpent! the serpent! he is turning, he is turning!" spontaneously bursting from their 

 lips. Then my wife did fix her looks in the direction they ran; and sure enough she 

 saw, apparently quite close beyond the line formed by the rising ground above the 

 rocks, a huge serpent, gliding gracefully through the waves, having evidently per- 

 formed the action of turning round. In an instant it was in a straight line, moving 

 rapidly on; and after coasting for a couple of minutes the north-west front of the 

 hotel, and (as accurately as the astoni&hed observer couid calculate) looking as it 

 stretched at full length about the length of the piazza,— that is to say, about ninety 

 feet, — it sank quietly beneath the surface, and was seen no more. The person who 

 was thus so lucky as to gel this unobstructed view is one so little liable to be led 



