^54 
EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
has given much attention to this subject, is of the opinion that ‘ in 
this huge development of ordinary forms we discover the true and 
natural law of the production of the giant serpent of the sea.’ It 
goes far at any rate towards accounting for its supposed appearance. 
I am convinced that whilst naturalists have been searching amongst 
the vertebrata for a solution of the problem, the great unknown, and 
therefore unrecognised, Calamaries, by their elongated cylindrical 
bodies and peculiar mode of swimming, have played the part of the 
sea-serpent in many a well-authenticated incident. In other cases, 
such as those mentioned by ‘ Pontoppidan’ {Hzsifory of Norway)^ the 
supposed vertical undulations of the snake seen out of water have 
been the burly bodies of so many porpoises swimming in line — the 
connecting undulations beneath the surface have been supplied by 
the imagination. The dorsal fins of basking sharks, as figured by 
Dr. Andrew Wilson, may have furnished the ‘ridge of fins;’ an 
enormous conger is not an impossibility ; a giant turtle may have 
done duty, with its propelling flippers and broad back ; or a marine 
snake of enormous si^e may really have been seen. But if we accept 
as accurate the observations recorded (which I certainly do not in all 
cases, for they are full of errors and mistakes), the difficulty is not 
entirely met, even by this last admission, for the instances are very 
few in which an Ophidian proper — a true serpent — is indicated. 
There has seemed to be wanting an animal having a long snake-like 
neck, a small head, and a slender body, and propelling itself by 
paddles. 
“ The similarity of such an animal to the Plesiosaurus of old was 
remarkable. That curious compound reptile, which has been com- 
pared with ‘ a snake threaded through the body of a turtle,’ is 
described by Dean Buckland as having ‘ the head of a lizard, the 
teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling the body 
of a serpent, the ribs of a cameleon, and the paddles of a whale.’ In 
the number of its cervical vertebrm (about thirty-three) it surpasses 
that of the longest-necked bird, the swan. 
“ The form and probable movements of this ancient Saurian agree so 
markedly with some of the accounts given of ‘ the great sea-serpent,’ 
that Mr. Edward Newman advanced the opinion that the closest 
affinities of the latter would be found to be with the Enaliosaurians, 
or Marine Lizards, whose fossil remains are so abundant in the 
Oolite and the Lias. This view has been taken by other writers, and 
emphatically by Mr. Gosse. Neither he nor Mr. Newman insist that 
‘ the great unknown ’ must be the Plesiosaurus itself. Mr. Gosse 
