"We may also add, that in the regions of which it is a native, possibly it meets with but few enemies capable of shortening its life: and we have every reason for believing Pliny, who describes whales of 120 feet and upwards in length, as being formerly extant in the North Seas, although we now find the same description of fish seldom attain the length of 60 feet. The cause is the interested necessity of man, which does not allow them to attain their full growth, but destroys them before their time. The skeleton of a whale was some time ago found on the western coast of North America, that was 105 feet in length. This contributes to vindicate Pliny: and even the correctness of his account of the prodigious serpent slain by Regulus is strongly vouched for by such discoveries.

"We say nothing on the support this yields to the accounts of other immense inhabitants of the waters: the inference cannot escape the reader. Accident may throw a Kraken on our coast, As to the spots

on the body of this serpent, we know that the skin of each species of serpent is distinguished by a peculiar pattern; some of which are extremely handsome."

We conclude the foregoing extract with a transfer of the sketch adapted to our own pages of Egede's representation of what he saw. And we shall add one more extract from the Naval Chronicle of 1818, in which we find preserved the following, which appears to be the latest American account of the animal seen in former days.

"Captain Woodward, met in the beginning of May, this year, with an enormous serpent which seems to be different from that seen last year near Cape Anne.-The following is the declaration of Captain Woodward, and it seems to us to be worthy of the attention of naturalists :

"I, the undersigned Joseph Woodward, captain of the Adamant schooner, of Hingham, being on my route from Penobscot to Hingham, steering W.N.W., and being about ten leagues from the coast, perceived last Saturday, at 2h. P.M., something on the surface of the water, which seemed to me to be of the size of a large boat. Supposing that it might be part of the wreck of a ship, I approached it; but when I was within

a few fathoms of it, it appeared to my great surprise, and that of my whole crew, that it was a monstrous serpent. When I approached nearer, it coiled itself up, instantly uncoiled itself again, and withdrew with extreme rapidity. On my approaching again, it coiled itself up a second time, and placed itself at the distance of sixty feet at most from the bow of the ship.

"I had one of my guns loaded with a cannon ball, and musket bullets; I fired it at the head of the monster; my crew and myself distinctly heard the ball and the bullets strike against his body, from which they rebounded as if they had struck against a rock. The serpent shook his head and his tail in an extraordinary manner, and advanced towards the ship with open jaws: I had caused the cannon to be re-loaded, and pointed it at his throat; but he had come so near, that all the crew were seized with terror, and we thought only of getting out of his way. He almost touched the vessel, and had I not tacked as I did, he would certainly have come on board. He dived; but in a moment we saw him appear again, with his head on one side of the vessel, and his tail on the other, as if he was going to lift us up and to upset us. However, we did not feel any shock. He remained five hours near us, only going backward and forward.

"The fears with which he first inspired us having subsided, we were able to examine him attentively. I estimate that his length is at least twice that of my schooner; that is to say, 130 feet: his head is full twelve or fourteen; the diameter of his body, below the neck, is not less than six feet; the size of the head is in proportion to that of his body.He is of a blackish colour; his ear-holes (ouies) are about twelve feet from the extremity of his head. In short, the whole has a terrible look. "When he coils himself up, he places his tail in such a manner, that it aids him in darting forward with great force; he moves in all directions with the greatest facility, and astonishing rapidity.

(Signed) "JOSEPH WOODWARD." "This declaration is attested by Peter Holmes and John Mayne, who made affidavits of the truth of it before a Justice of the Peace.

It would occupy more of our space than we can now admit, to preserve all the accounts that have been given of sea serpents. Still we consider it proper to retain the accredited sketches of them. We, therefore, make room for that seen by Capt. M'Quhae, which we transfer here from its place in the Illustrated News, referring the reader to our last number for the description which he gave of it. The trite remarks which have been made on the subject by the celebrated naturalist, Professor Owen, and which we subjoin, do not, in our opinion, impugn the account of Capt M'Quhae, nor can we see how the very long neck and body "a fleur d'eau" agrees with that of a seal. The animal he saw might have fins similar to that described from Orkney, (three on each side,) and with respect to its size, that is a point of no great importance, and one on which any one may be easily deceived. We shall, therefore, leave the subject as it is, and trust that our seamen will never be backward in describing what they do see, and if they can obtain a specimen of it all the better.

"The sketch will suggest the reply to your query "whether the monster seen from the Daedalus be anything but a Saurian"? If it be the true answer it destroys the romance of the incident, and will be anything but acceptable to those who prefer the excitement of the imagination to the satisfaction of the judgment. I am far from insensible to the pleasures of the discovery of a new and rare animal, but before I can enjoy them certain conditions, e.g. reasonable proof or evidence of its existence, must be fulfilled. I am also far from undervaluing the information which Captain M'Quhae has given us of what he saw. When fairly analysed it lies in a small compass; but my knowledge of the animal kingdom compels me to draw other conclusions from the phenomena than those which the gallant captain seems to have jumped at. He evidently saw a large animal moving rapidly through the water, very different from anything he had before witnessed-neither a whale, a grampus, a great shark, an alligator, nor any other of the larger surface swimming creatures which are fallen in with in ordinary voyages. He writes, "On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent" (read animal), "with the head and shoulders kept about 4 feet constantly above the surface of the sea. The diameter of the serpent (animal) was about 15 or 16 inches behind the head; its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat." No fins were seen (the captain says there were none; but from his own account he did not see enough of the animal to prove his negative). "Something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed washed about its back." So much of the body as was seen was "not used in propelling the animal through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation." A calculation of its length was made under a strong preconception of the nature of the beast. The head eg. is stated to be "without any doubt that of a snake;" and yet a snake would be the last species to which a naturalist conversant with the forms and characters of the heads of animals would refer such a head as that of which Captain M'Quhae has transmitted a drawing to the Admiralty, and which he certifies to have been accurately copied in the Illustrated London News for October, 28, 1848, p. 265.

*This was a reduced copy of the drawing of the head of the animal seen by Captain M'Quhac, attached to the submerged body of a large seal, showing the long eddy produced by the action of the terminal flippers.

"Your Lordship will observe that no sooner was the captain's attention called to the object than "it was discovered to be an enormous serpent," and yet the closest inspection of as much of the body as was visible a fleur d'eau, failed to detect any undulations of the body, although such actions constitute the very character which would distinguish a serpent or serpentiform swimmer from any other marine species. The foregone conclusion, therefore, of the beast's being a sea serpent, notwithstanding its capacious vaulted cranium and stiff inflexible trunk, must be kept in mind in estimating the value of the approximation made to the total length of the animal, as "at the very least 60 feet." This is the only part of the description, however, which seems to me to be so uncertain as to be inadmissible in an attempt to arrive at a right conclusion as to the nature of the animal. The more certain characters of the animal are these:-Head, with a convex, moderately capacious cranium, short obtuse muzzle, gape of the mouth not extending further than to beneath the eye, which is rather small, round, filling closely the palpebral aperture; colour, dark brown above, yellowish white beneath; surface smooth, without scales, scutes, or other conspicuous modifications of hard and naked cuticle. And the captain says, "Had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognised his features with my naked eye." Nostrils not mentioned, but indicated in the drawing by a crescentic mark at the end of the nose or muzzle. All these are the characters of the head of a warm-blooded mammal; none of them those of a cold-blooded reptile or fish. Body long, dark brown, not undulafing, without dorsal or other apparent fins; "but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed washed about its back." The character of the integuments would be a most important one for the zoologist in the determination of the class to which the above defined creature belonged.

If any opinion can be deduced as to the integuments from the above indication, it is that the species had hair which, if it was too short and close to be distinguished on the head, was visible where it usually is the longest, on the middle line of the shoulders or advanced part of the back, where it was not stiff and upright like the rays of a fin, but "washed about." Guided by the above interpretation of the 'mane of a horse, or a bunch of sea-weed,' the animal was not a cetaceous mammal: but rather a great seal. But what seal of large size, or indeed of any size, would be encountered in latitude 24° 44' S., and longitude 9° 22' E.,-viz: about 300 miles from the western shore of the southern end of Africa? The most likely species to be there met with are the largest of the seal tribe, e.g. Anson's sea lion, or that known to the southern whalers by the name of the Sea Elephant,' the phoca proboscidia, which attains the length of from 20 to 30 feet. These great seals abound in certain of the islands of the southern and antarctic seas, from which an individual is occasionally floated off upon an iceberg.

"The sea lion exhibited in London last spring, which was a young individual of the phoca proboscidia, was actually captured in that predicament, having been carried by the currents that set northward towards the Cape, where its temporary resting place was rapidly melting away. When a large individual of the phoca proboscidia or phoca leonina is thus borne off to a distance from its native shore, it is compelled to return for rest to its floating abode after it has made its daily excursion in quest of the fishes or squids that constitute its food. It is thus brought by the iceberg into the latitudes of the Cape, and perhaps further north, before the berg has melted away. Then the poor seal is compelled to swim as long as strength endures; and in such a predicament I imagine the creature was that Mr. Sartorious saw approaching the Dadalus from before the beam, scanning, probably, its capa

bilities as a resting place, as it paddled its long stiff body past the ship. In so doing, it would raise a head of the form and colour described and delineated by Captain M'Quhae, supported on a neck also of the diameter given; the thick neck passing into an inflexible trunk, the longer and coarser hair on the upper part of which would give rise to the idea, especially if the species were the phoca leonina explained by the similes above cited. The organs of locomotion would be out of sight. The pectoral fins being set on very low down, as in my sketch, the chief impelling force would be the action of the deeper immersed terminal fins and tail, which would create a long eddy, readily mistakeable by one looking at the strange phenomenon with a sea serpent in his mind's eye for an indefinite prolongation of the body.

"It is very probable that not one on board the Dædalus ever before beheld a gigantic seal freely swimming in the open ocean. Entering unexpectedly upon that vast and commonly blank desert of waters it would be a strange and exciting spectacle, and might be well interpreted as a marvel; but the creative powers of the human mind appear to be really very limited, and on all the occasions where the true source of the 'great unknown' has been detected whether it has proved to be a file of sportive porpoises, or a pair of gigantic sharks,-old Pontoppidan's sea serpent with the mane has uniformly suggested itself as the representative of the portent, until the mystery has been unravelled.

"The vertebræ of the sea serpent described and delineated in the Wernerian Transactions, vol. 1, and sworn to by the fishermen who saw it off the Isle of Stronsa (one of the Orkneys), in 1808, two of which vertebræ are in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, are certainly those of a great shark, of the genus selache, and are not distinguishable from those of the species called basking shark,' of which individuals from 30 to 35 feet in length have been from time to time captured or stranded on our coasts.

"I have no unmeet confidence in the exactitude of my interpretation of the phenomena witnessed by the captain and others of the Dædalus. I am too sensible of the inadequacy of the characters which the opportunity of a rapidly passing animal, 'in a long ocean swell, enabled them to note, for the determination of its species or genus. Giving due credence to the most probably accurate elements of their description, they do little more than guide the zoologist to the class, which, in the present instance, is not that of the serpent or the saurian.

"But I am usually asked, after each endeavour to explain Captain M'Quhae's sea serpent, Why there should not be a great sea serpent?'often, too, in a tone which seems to imply, 'Do you think, then, that there are not more marvels in the deep than are dreamt of in your philosophy ?' And freely conceding that point, I have felt bound to give a reason for scepticism as well as faith. If a gigantic sea serpent actually exists, the species must of course have been perpetuated through successive generations, from its first creation and introduction in the seas of this planet. Conceive, then, the number of individuals that must have lived and died and have left their remains to attest the actuality of the species during the enormous lapse of time from its beginning to the 6th of August last! Now, a serpent, being an air breathing animal with long vesicular and receptacular lungs, dives with an effort, and commonly floats when dead; and so would the sea serpent, until decomposition or accident had opened the tough integument and let out the imprisoned gases. Then it would sink, and, if in deep water, be seen no more until the sea rendered up its dead, after the lapse of the œons requisite for the yielding of its place to dry land-a change which has actually revealed to the present generation the old saurian monsters that