42 
mention, that Sir Everard Home, and probably other naturalists, ex¬ 
pressed their belief that it was a gigantic shark of the basking species, 
which are known to visit occasionally the British seas. 
The author having very slender pretensions to a knowledge of compa¬ 
rative anatomy, will not presume to decide where such doctors differ, 
but would remark that, considering the great advances which have been 
made in this science, in common with all others, during the last forty 
years, there should be no difficulty, on a careful collation of all the cha¬ 
racters of the Stronsa animal from the original documents, and from the 
relics, if still preserved in Edinburgh, for skilled naturalists to determine 
at least the order to which it belongs. 
It may be permitted, in the meantime, to offer the following suggestions 
on the foregoing description. 
The existence of spiracles inclined Dr. Barclay to place the Orkney 
animal among the cete. They are noted as two on each side of the neck, 
and one on the top of the head. Does not this arrangement correspond 
with that belonging to the lampreys, which have their branchiae so placed, 
as well as possessing the spiracle in the head? The family of sirens also 
possess both branchial apertures on the side of the neck, and internal 
lungs also. The presence of spiracula, therefore, especially in the neck, 
does not necessarily imply the affinity of the Stronsa animal with the 
cete; and in the particulars preserved of the various appearances of the 
sea serpent, only in two instances is anything like spouting or blowing 
referred to; one of these is Hans Egede’s somewhat apocryphal account, 
and whose animal, stripped of exaggeration, may probably be set down as 
a “ whale breaching.” The other is in the statement taken from Silli- 
man’s Journal of the year 1835. (See page 28.) Besides, from the extreme 
rarity of the appearance of the supposed sea serpents, it is evident, if 
such a genus does exist, its usual habitat must he in the lower strata of 
waters, and it is there we must seek its congeners. 
Eminent naturalists have devised various schemes for classifying the 
animal creation. Adopting for our present subject the connecting groups 
of Swainson, we observe that in his ichthyological arrangement, he appears 
to meet with a considerable hiatus between the cartilaginous fishes and 
the amphibious reptiles, and he has recourse to the fossil saurians to com¬ 
plete his series, though even with this help, the connection is unsatisfac¬ 
tory. Of the hydri, he says “ Between the terrestrial snakes and the 
aquatic enalosaures, there is a group of serpents which departs most mate¬ 
rially from the rest of the order by being aquatic ; not merely frequenting 
the water, but living entirely in it, and possessing a structure suited to 
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