si 8 Mr. Home’s anatomical Account 
a. A projecting body peculiar to the male. There is a pair 
of these, by means of which the female is held in the act of 
copulation. 
Fig. 2. An exact copy of the drawing sent up to Sir Joseph 
Banks from the Orkneys, of a Squalus in a mutilated state, 
without the skin or viscera, thrown ashore upon that coast, 
which being mistaken for a perfect animal, unlike any thing 
at present known, it was supposed to be a sea snake. 
a. The skull, from which the upper and low'er jaw had 
been separated by putrefaction. 
b. The orbit. 
c c. The spine of the fish surrounded by muscles, the gills 
and gullet having been separated by putrefaction. 
d d. The dorsal fin, which in a half putrid state puts on a 
shaggy appearance, the ligamentous fibres of which the broad 
part is composed being separated from one another ; this was 
mistaken for a mane, and, from want of accurate observation, 
was continued on to the tail, although it could only be seen 
in the situation of the two dorsal fins. 
e e, e e, e e. The holders of the male, which are represented 
with tolerable accuracy as they appear in a half putrid state, 
but two only are met with in nature in the situation in which 
they are seen in Fig. 1 , there they have a different appearance, 
the internal parts being concealed by the common integu- 
ments. 
fff. Contortions which the structure of the intervertebral 
substance of the fish rendered it impossible for the spine to 
make, and therefore could not have been seen. These con- 
tortions so represented, render it highly probable that the 
account of Pontoppidan’s sea snake had been read by the 
