68 
SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 
raised this portion of its body out of the water to a consider- 
able height, an occurrence which I have often witnessed, and 
which I have elsewhere described (see pp. 23 and 27). The 
supposed tail, which was turned up at some distance from 
the other visible portion of the body, after the latter had sunk 
back into the sea, was one of the shorter arms of the cuttle, and 
the suckers on its under side are clearly and conspicuously 
marked. Egede was, of course, in error in making the 
" spout " of water to issue from the mouth of his monster. 
The out-pouring jet, which he, no doubt, saw, came from 
the locomotor tube, and the puff of spray which would 
accompany it as the orifice of the tube rose to the surface 
of the water is sketched with remarkable truthfulness. In 
quoting Egede, Pontoppidan gives a copy (so-called) of this 
eneravine, but his artist embellished it so much as to 
deprive it of its original force and character, and of the 
honestly drawn points which furnish proofs of its identity. 
Pontoppidan records other supposed appearances of the 
sea-serpent, but from the date of his history I know of no 
other account of such an occurrence until that of an animal 
apparently belonging to this class," which was stranded 
on the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, in the year 
1808 :— 
"According to the narrative, it was first seen entire, and 
measured by respectable individuals. It measured fifty-six feet 
in length, and twelve in circumference. The head was small, not 
being a foot long from the snout to the first vertebra ; the neck 
was slender, extending to the length of fifteen feet. All the wit- 
nesses agree in assigning it blow-holes, though they difier as to the 
precise situation. On the shoulders something Hke a bristly mane 
commenced which extended to near the extremity of the tail. It 
had three pairs of fins or paws connected with the body ; the 
anterior were the largest, measuring more than four feet in length, 
and their extremities were something like toes partially webbed. 
