£8 
to the point of time, it must have been from known data be¬ 
tween the 18th and 25th of June. And I would remark, that 
this is exactly the season when the first setting in of mackerel oc¬ 
curs in our bay. 
Yours respectfully, 
S. DAVIS.' 
Hon. J. Davis, "i 
Dr. J. Bigelow, i 
Mr. F. C. Gray,J 
Committee of the Lin- 
ncean Society. 
XVIII. 
I, Elkanah Finney of Plymouth, in the County of Plym¬ 
outh, Mariner, testify and say : That about the twentieth of June 
A. D. 1815, being at work near my house, which is situated near 
the sea shore in Plymouth, at a place called Warren’s cove, 
where the beach joins the main land ; my son, a boy, came from 
the shore and informed me of an unusual appearance on the sur¬ 
face of the sea in the cove. I paid little attention to his story at 
> f‘ rst ! but as he persisted in saying that he had seen something 
very remarkable, I looked towards the cove, where I saw some¬ 
thing which appeared to the naked eye to be drift sea weed. I 
then viewed it through a perspective glass, and was in a moment 
satisfied that it was some aquatic animal, with the form, motion 
and appearance of which I had hitherto been unacquainted. 
It was about a quarter of a mile from the shore, and was mov¬ 
ing with great rapidity to the northward. It then appeared to 
be about thirty feet in length; the animal went about half a mile 
to the northward ; then turned about, and while turning, display¬ 
ed a greater length than I had before seen ; I supposed at least 
an hundred feet. It then came towards me, in a southerly di¬ 
rection, very rapidly, until he was in a line with me, when he stop¬ 
ped, and lay entirely still on the surface of the water. I then had 
a good view of him through my glass, at the distance of a 
quarter of a mile. His appearance in this situation was like a 
string of buoys. I saw perhaps thirty or forty of these protu- 
