PREFACE. 
As I commence this little history of two sea monsters 
there comes to my mind a remark made to me by my 
friend, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens — " Mark Twain " — which 
illustrates a feeling that many a writer must have 
experienced when dealing with a subject that has been 
previously well handled. Expressing to me one day the 
gratification he felt in having made many pleasant 
acquaintances in England, he added, w^ith dry humour, 
and a grave countenance, " Yes ! I owe your countrymen 
no grudge or ill-will. I freely forgive them, though one 
of them did me a grievous wrong, an irreparable injury ! 
It was Shakspeare : if he had not written those plays of 
his, I should have done so ! They contain my thoughts, 
uiy sentiments ! He forestalled me ! " 
In treating of the so-called " sea-serpent," I have been 
anticipated by many able waiters. Mr. Gosse, in his 
delightful book, *The Romance of Natural History,' 
published in 1862, devoted a chapter to it ; and numerous 
articles concerning it have appeared in various papers and 
periodicals. 
But, for the information from which those authors have 
drawn their inferences, and on which they have founded 
their opinions, they have been greatly indebted, as must 
be all who have seriously to consider this subject, to the 
