NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 37 
to self justification or self-magnification, all tend to warp the 
judgment from the objective towards the subjective. We can- 
not, however, reject all reported wonders as untrue, for while 
most of them are false a few are not; science must examine all, 
to determine whether they have a real existence, or are simply 
imaginings born from the credulity of ignorant men or the men- 
dacity of cultured ones. Credulity may evolve wonders either 
by an exaggeration of a real phenomenon, as in the case of the 
Fire Ship of Caraquet (Note 92), or by forcing real phenomena 
into support of a pre-conceived notion, as in the myths of the 
Sea-serpent. 
Some of the reports of New Brunswick Sea-serpents have a 
perfectly genuine basis in all but name, that being adopted for 
reasons more or less humorous. Thus, for the past few summers, 
the local papers have often reported the appearances of the 
11 Sea-serpent ’ ’ at Passamaquoddy and the Saint Croix The 
animal is really there, but it is, according to the testimony of 
observant persons, a White Whale, an animal very rare in these 
waters, though abundant in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Locally 
it is stated that it came into the Bay with the war-ships taking 
part in the Champlain celebration, June 25, 1905. But in this 
belief we have nothing but an illustration of another wonder- 
tendency, viz., the habit of linking together, as casually con- 
nected, prominent events which are merely (or only approximately) 
contemporaneous ; for data in my possession show that this 
animal was seen in the bay at least one season before 1905. 
But of Sea-serpent myths of the more usual type, three cases 
have come under my notice. The first is the locally well-known 
Monster of Lake Utopia, of which more is below. The second 
is probably but an echo thereof, for Dr. J. Orne Green tells me 
there is locally a shadowy belief in the former presence of a 
Sea-serpent in Oromocto Lake. The third is the locally-celebrated 
case reported by the late Mr. Eben Hall, of Saint Stephen, who 
as a young man saw a strange monster on some of the lakes of 
Maine, upon which he gave lectures and often discoursed, all 
in perfect good faith. 
