Nature is whimsical and unpredictable and sometimes in a perverse mood she delights in creating freaks and monstrosities.
But even when we remember that fact, we are still inevitably awed and bewildered by such creatures as the one that Captain Oliver found on the beach at Soraro Island.
For Harry Streeter, reporter on the staff of the Morning Herald, Sydney, Australia's leading newspaper, Captain Oliver's arrival in port came as a godsend.
Morning, Oliver.
City depth.
Greetings.
Hello there. My name's Oliver. Captain Oliver. I'm captain of the trade in Vesalemio. We just docked about a half hour ago.
If you'll drop down to the arbor, I've got something here I think you'll be interested in seeing.
A half hour later, Harry Streeter was walking along the port. When he came upon the emu, a voice from the deck above greeted him heartily.
Oh, there. You the man from the newspaper?
That's right.
Well, come on board. You'll find a blooming thing lying right here on the deck.
Harry Streeter, highly skeptical of the whole affair, mounted the gangplank.
Think your piper might be interested in something like that?
Harry glanced at the deck and gasped in amazement. Lying at his feet were the bones of an animal, the most gigantic bones that any human being had ever laid eyes on.
There were two skulls, each over two feet long, fastened together and connected to a single vertebral column. And there was a hip bone twice the size of a man.
Where in heaven's name did you find that? Saguaro Island, lying on the beach.
The old emu was there, but we just brought back Porter the skeleton.
The two heads were joined together like that when you found them?
Aye. Well, those skulls are shaped like horses' heads. And they've got beaks on them.
Have you ever heard of a beet quail?
I've seen him.
No, you've seen him again. Those are the bones of two beet quails that somebody tied together.
Mr. Streeter, how big is the biggest beet wild?
They run as long as 30 feet.
Well, this here animal measured just 60 feet from tip to tip. And what's more, his skin was covered with hair.
But Harry Streeter remained skeptical. Though he saw fit to abandon his theory that the monster was really two whales, his story in the morning herald the next day carried what he felt was a thoroughly scientific explanation.
It would be believed the 60-foot animal with two heads was actually alive and wandering along the shores of Saguaro Island shortly before the captain and his crew stumbled on it.
Uly Potter, however, could not avoid the conclusion that what Oliver's brought back with him are nothing more nor less than fossil remains.
Such an explanation would only be precluded, of course, if we were presented with the hair and skin which the captain claims to have removed from the bones.
If the animal isn't the fossil, why didn't he bring the skin back with him?
In a letter to the editor of the morning herald, Captain Oliver gave his reasons.
If he found the skin of an animal that had been lying under the yacht tropical sun for a week or two, how would he like to take it along with him in a small crowded boat?
The issue was not settled until a certain prominent scientist issued his own statement.
The bones have been lying in my laboratory for several days. These are definitely not fossil remains.
And so the question was resolved, and it was apparent that Captain Oliver had been unjustly accused.
He could only be accepted as a story incredible but true.