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LONDON, 1883

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED

BY

Piro ¥ oP; F.1.S., -F.G.S., F:Z.S.

SOMETIME NATURALIST OF THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM

AND

AUTHOR OF ‘THE OCTOPUS, OR THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND FACT’

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LONDON

(iat CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION
AND 13 CHARING CROSS, S.W.

1883

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As I commence this little history of two sea monsters
there comes to my mind a remark made to me by my
friend, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens—“ Mark Twain ”—which
illustrates a feeling that many a writer must have
experienced when dealing with a subject that has been
previously well handled. Expressing to me one day the
gratification he felt in having made many pleasant
acquaintances in England, he added, with dry humour,
and a grave countenance, “Yes! I owe your countrymen
no grudge or ill-will. I freely forgive them, though one
of them did me a grievous wrong, an irreparable injury !
It was Shakspeare: if he had not written those plays of
his, I should have done so! They contain my thoughts,
my sentiments! He forestalled me!”

In treating of the so-called “sea-serpent,’ I have been
anticipated by many able writers. Mr. Gosse, in his
delightful book, ‘The Romance of Natural History,’
published in 1862, devoted a chapter to it; and numerous
articles concerning it have appeared in various papers and
periodicals.

But, for the information from which those authors have
drawn their inferences, and on which they have founded
their opinions, they have been greatly indebted, as must
be all who have seriously to consider this subject, to the

vl PREFACE.

late experienced editor of the Zoologist, Mr. Edward
Newman, a man of wonderful power of mind, of great
judgment, a profound thinker, and an able writer. Ata
time when, as he said, “the shafts of ridicule were launched
against believers and unbelievers in the sea-serpent in a
very pleasing and impartial manner,” he, in the true spirit
of philosophical inquiry, in 1847, opened the columns of
his magazine to correspondence on this topic, and all the
more recent reports of marine monsters having been seen
are therein recorded. To him, therefore, the fullest
acknowledgments are due.

The great cuttles, also, have been the subject of articles
in various magazines, notably one by Mr. W. Saville
Kent, F.L.S., in the ‘Popular Science Review’ of April,
1874, and a chapter in my little book on the Octopus,
published in 1873, is also devoted to them. In writing
of them as the living representatives of the kraken, and as
having been frequently mistaken for the “sea-serpent,”
my deductions have been drawn from personal knowledge,
and an intimate acquaintance with the habits, form, and
structure of the animals described. It was only by
watching the movements of specimens of the “common
squid” (Loligo vulgaris), and the “little squid” (L. media),
which lived in the tanks of the Brighton Aquarium, that
I recognised in their peculiar habit of occasionally
swimming half-submerged, with uplifted caudal extremity,
and trailing arms, the fact that I had before me the “sea-
serpent” of many a well-authenticated anecdote. A mere
knowledge of their form and anatomy after death had
never suggested to me that which became at once apparent
when I saw them in life.

It is a pleasure to me to acknowledge gratefully the
kindness I have met with in connection with the illustra-

PREFACE. Vii

tions of this book. The proprietors of the J///ustrated
London News not only gave me permission to copy, in
reduced size, their two pictures of the Dedalus incident,
but presented to me electrotype copies of all others small
enough for these pages—namely, “ Jonah and the Monster,”
Egede’s “Sea-Serpent,” and the Whale as seen from the
Pauline. Equally kind have been the proprietors of the
Fiedd. To them I am greatly indebted for their permission
to copy the beautiful woodcuts of the “ Octopus at Rest,”
“The Sepia seizing its Prey,” and the arms of the New-
foundland squids, and also for “electros” of the two curious
Japanese engravings, all of which originally appeared
in their paper. From the Graphic I have had similar
permission to copy any cuts that might be thought
suitable, and the illustrations of the sea-serpent, as seen
from Her Majesty’s yacht Osborne and the Czty of Balti-
more, are from that journal. Messrs. Nisbet most courteously
allowed me to have a copy of the block of the Exaliosaurus
swimming, which was one of the numerous pictures in
Mr. Gosse’s book, published by them, already referred to.
And last, not least, I have to thank Miss Ellen Woodward,
daughter of my friend, Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., for
enabling me to better explain the movements and appear-
ances of the squids when swimming, and when raising their
bodies out of water in an erect position, by carefully
drawing them from my rough sketches.

HENRY LEE.

SAVAGE CLUB;
Fuly 21st, 1883.

LIST. OP * TLLUST RAR

Frontispiece—The Sea Serpent as first seen from H.M.S.
Dedalus.

FIG. PAGE
1. Beak and Arms of a Decapod Cuttle 1...) « 4° $v Si eeee
2. The Octopus (Odepus vulgaris) --.- «(so a, ee
3. The. Cuttle (Sepz officals)... 12s ss ee
4. Hooked Tentacles of Onmychoteuthis ..-. . «+09 2 ees
5. Japanese fisherman attacked bya Cuttle . . . 2 2 2
6. Arms of a great Cuttle exhibited in a Japanese fish- aap <2 (ae
7. Facsimile of De Montfort’s “ Poulfe colossal”. . , 2
8. Gigantic Calamary caught by the French dednicn vestel

Alecton, near Teneriffe . . 39
9. Tentacle of a great Calamary (4 rihstenilis ee valick

in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. . . . 43
10. Head and Tentacles of a great Calamary (4 pchitcaaes

princeps) taken in Logie Bay, Newfoundland. . . . 44

11. Jonah andthe Sea Monster. . . + tn) Tg

12. Sea Serpent seizing a man on board ep _) 2 as 6 ti eee

13. Gigantic Lobster dragging amanfromaship. . . . . 58

14. Pontoppidan’s “Sea Serpent” . 63

15. The Animal drawn by Mr. Bing as emits ena seen n by Moat. 66

16. The Animal which Egede probably saw . . at ts,. See

17. The Sea Serpent of the Wernerian Society ( Paeeays ci.

18. A Calamary swimming at the surface ofthe sea . . 77

19. The Sea Serpent passing under the quarter of H. M, S,

PBILIIES ey 81

20. The Sea Serpent and as “Whale as seen eo the

Fauane =. . a a
21. The Sea Serpent as seen a the City e Bale : 93
22. The Sea Serpent as seen from .M. yacht shen

Phase I uly 94
23. The Sea Serpent as seen Pies H. M. yates Oia

oo ee a
24. Skeleton of the Piesinwiuniie erates i om Contents «6

. The Sea Serpent on the Enaliosaurian hypothesis . . . I100

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED,

——_ ¢ _ + ——.

THE KRAKEN.

IN the legends and traditions of northern nations, stories of
the existence of a marine animal of such enormous sfze
that it more resembled an island than an organised being
frequently found a place. It is thus described in an
ancient manuscript (about A.D. 1180), attributed to the
Norwegian King Sverre; and the belief in it has been
alluded to by other Scandinavian writers from an early
period to the present day. It was an obscure and
mysterious sea-monster, known as the Kraken, whose form
and nature were imperfectly understood, and it was pecu-
liarly the object of popular wonder and superstitious
dread.

Eric Pontoppidan, the younger, Bishop of Bergen, and
member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen,
is generally, but unjustly, regarded as the inventor of the
semi-fabulous Kraken, and is constantly misquoted by
authors who have never read his work,* and who, one after
another, have copied from their predecessors erroneous state-
ments concerning him. More than half a century before him,
Christian Francis Paullinus,f a physician and naturalist of
Eisenach, who evinced in his writings an admiration of ©

* “Natural History of Norway.’ A.D. 1751.
t Born 1643 ; died 1712.

2 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

the marvellous rather than of the useful, had described
as resembling Gesner’s ‘ Heracleoticon,’ a monstrous animal
which occasionally rose from the sea on the coasts of
Lapland and Finmark, and which was of such enormous .
dimensions, that a regiment of soldiers could conveniently
manceuvre on its back. About the same date, but a little
earlier, Bartholinus, a learned Dane, told how, on a certain
occasion, the Bishop of Midaros found the Kraken quietly
reposing on the shore, and mistaking the enormous creature
for a huge rock, erected an altar upon it and performed
mass. The Kraken respectfully waited till the ceremony
was concluded, and the reverend prelate safe on shore, and
then sank beneath the waves.

And a hundred and fifty years before Bartholinus and
Paullinus wrote, Olaus Magnus,* Archbishop of Upsala, in
Sweden, had related many wondrous narratives of sea-
monsters,—tales which had gathered and accumulated
marvels as they had been passed on from generation to
generation in oral history, and which he took care to be-
queath to his successors undeprived of any of their fascina-
tion. According to him, the Kraken was not so polite to
the laity as to the Bishop, for when some fishermen lighted
a fire on its back, it sank beneath their feet, and over-
whelmed them in the waters.

Pontoppidan was not a fabricator of falsehoods; but, in

* Olaus Magnus has sometimes been mistaken for his brother and
predecessor in the archiepiscopal see, Johan Magnus, author of a
book entitled ‘Gothorum, Suevorumque Historia.’ Olaus was the
last Roman Catholic archbishop of the Swedish church, and when the
Reformation, supported by Gustavus Vasa, gained the ascendancy in
Sweden, he remained true to his faith, and retired to Rome, where he
wrote his work, ‘Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,’ Rome,
1555. An English translation of this book was published by
J. Streater, in 1658. It does not contain the illustrations.

THE KRAKEN, 3

collecting evidence relating to the “great beasts” living in
“the great and wide sea,” was influenced, as he tells us, by
“a desire to extend the popular knowledge of the glorious
works of a beneficent Creator.” He gave too much
credence to contemporary narratives and old traditions of
floating islands and sea monsters, and to the superstitious
beliefs and exaggerated statements of ignorant fishermen :
but if those who ridicule him had lived in his day and amongst
his people, they would probably have done the same; for
even Linnzus was led to believe in the Kraken, and cata-
logued it in the first edition of his ‘Systema Nature,’ as
‘Sepia Miucrocosmos. He seems to have afterwards had
cause to discredit his information respecting it, for he
omitted it in the next edition. The Norwegian bishop was
a conscientious and painstaking investigator, and the tone of
his writings is neither that of an intentional deceiver nor of
an incautious dupe. He diligently endeavoured to separate
the truth from the cloud of error and fiction by which it
was obscured ; and in this he was to a great extent success-
ful, for he correctly identifies, from the vague and perplex-
ing descriptions submitted to him, the animal whose habits
and structure had given rise to so many terror-laden
narratives and extravagant traditions,

The following are some of his remarks on the subject of
this gigantic and ill-defined animal. Although I have
greatly abbreviated them, I have thought it right to quote
them at considerable length, that the modest and candid
spirit in which they were written may be understood ;*

“ Amongst the many things,” he says, “which are in the ocean,
and concealed from our eyes, or only presented to our view for a
few minutes, is the Kraken. This creature is the largest and most
surprising of all the animal creation, and consequently well de-

* ‘Natural History of Norway, vol. ii., p. 210.
Bs

4 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

serves such an account as the nature of the thing, according to
the Creator’s wise ordinances, will admit of. Such I shall give at
present, and perhaps much greater light on this subject may be
reserved for posterity.

“Our fishermen unanimously affirm, and without the least
variation in their accounts, that when they row out several miles to
sea, particularly in the hot summer days, and by their situation
(which they know by taking a view of different points of land)
expect to find eighty or a hundred fathoms of water, it often
happens that they do not find above twenty or thirty, and some-
times less, At these places they generally find the greatest plenty
of fish, especially cod and ling. ‘Their lines, they say, are no
sooner out than they may draw them up with the hooks all full of
fish. By this they know that the Kraken is at the bottom. They
say this creature causes those unnatural shallows mentioned above,
and prevents their sounding. These the fishermen are always glad
to find, looking upon them as a means of their taking abundance
of fish. ‘There are sometimes twenty boats or more got together
and throwing out their lines at a moderate distance from each
other ; and the only thing they then have to observe is whether
the depth continues the same, which they know by their lines, or
whether it grows shallower, by their seeming to have less water.
If this last be the case they know that the Kraken is raising himself
nearer the surface, and then it is not time for them to stay any longer ;
they immediately leave off fishing, take to their oars, and get away
as fast as they can. When they have reached the usual depth of
the place, and find themselves out of danger, they lie upon their
oars, and in a few minutes after they see this enormous monster
come up to the surface of the water; he there shows himself suf-
ficiently, though his whole body does not appear, which, in all
likelihood, no human eye ever beheld. Its back or upper part,
which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a
half in circumference (some say more, but I chuse the least for
greater certainty), looks at first like a number of small islands sur-
rounded with something that floats and fluctuates like sea-weeds.
Here and there a larger rising is observed like sand-banks, on
which various kinds of small fishes are seen continually leaping

THE KRAKEN. 5

about till they roll off into the water from the sides of it ; at last
several bright points or horns appear, which grow thicker and
thicker the higher they rise above the surface of the water, and
sometimes they stand up as high and as large as the masts of
middle-sized vessels. It seems these are the creature’s arms, and
it is said if they were to lay hold of the largest man of war they
would pull it down to the bottom. After this monster has been
on the surface of the water a short time it begins slowly to sink
again, and then the danger is as great as before; because the
motion of his sinking causes such a swell in the sea, and such an
eddy or whirlpool, that it draws everything down with it, like the
current of the river Male. .

‘“‘ As this enormous sea-animal in all probability may be reck-
oned of the Polype, or of the Starfish kind, as shall hereafter be
more fully proved, it seems that the parts which are seen rising at
its pleasure, and are called arms, are properly the tentacula, or
feeling instruments, called horns, as well as arms. With these they
move themselves, and likewise gather in their food.

‘“ Besides these, for this last purpose the great Creator has also
given this creature a strong and peculiar scent, which it can emit
at certain times, and by means of which it beguiles and draws
other fish to come in heaps about it. This animal has another
strange property, known by the experience of many old fishermen.
They observe that for some months the Kraken or Krabben is
continually eating, and in other months he always voids his excre-
ments. During this evacuation the surface of the water is coloured
with the excrement, and appears quite thick and turbid. ‘This
muddiness is said to be so very agreeable to the smell or taste of
other fishes, or to both, that they gather together from all parts to
it, and keep for that purpose directly over the Kraken ; he then
opens his arms or horns, seizes and swallows his welcome guests,
and converts them after due time, by digestion, into a bait for
other fish of the same kind. I relate what is affirmed by many ;
but I cannot give so certain assurances of this particular, as I can
of the existence of this surprising creature ; though I do not find
anything in it absolutely contrary to Nature. As we can hardly
expect to examine this enormous sea-animal alive, I am the more

6 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

concerned that nobody embraced that opportunity which, according
to the following account once did, and perhaps never more may
offer, of seeing it entire when dead.”

The lost opportunity which the worthy prelate thus
lamented, with the true feeling of a naturalist, was made
known to him by the Rev. Mr. Friis, Consistorial As-
sessor, Minister of Bodoen in Nordland, and Vicar of the
college for promoting Christian knowledge, and was to the

following effect :

“Tn the year 1680, a Krake (perhaps a young and foolish one)
came into the water that runs between the rocks and cliffs in the
parish of Alstaboug, though the general custom of that creature is
to keep always several leagues from land, and therefore of course
they must die there. It happened that its extended long arms or
antennze, which this creature seems to use like the snail in turning
about, caught hold of some trees standing near the water,
which might easily have been torn up by the roots; but beside
this, as it was found afterwards, he entangled himself in some
openings or clefts in the rock, and therein stuck so fast, and hung
so unfortunately, that he could not work himself out, but perished
and putrefied on the spot. The carcass, which was a long while
decaying, and filled great part of that narrow channel, made it
almost impassable by its intolerable stench.

“The Kraken has never been known to do any great harm,
except,” the Author quaintly says, ‘‘ they have taken away the lives
of those who consequently could not bring the tidings. I have
heard but one instance mentioned, which happened a few years
ago, near Fridrichstad, in the diocess of Aggerhuus. They say that
two fishermen accidentally, and to their great surprise, fell into
such a spot on the water as has been before described, full of a thick
slime almost like a morass. They immediately strove to get out of
this place, but they had not time to turn quick enough to save
themselves from one of the Kraken’s horns, which crushed the
head of the boat, so that it was with great difficulty they saved
their lives on the wreck, though the weather was as calm as

THE KRAKEN. -

possible; for these monsters, like the sea-snake, never appear at
other times.”

Pontoppidan then reviews the stories of floating islands
which suddenly appear, and as suddenly vanish, commonly
credited, and especially mentioned by Luke Debes in his
‘ Description of Faroe.’

‘“‘ These islands in the boisterous ocean could not be imagined,”
he says, “ to be of the nature of real floating islands, because they
could not possibly stand against the violence of the waves in the
ocean, which break the largest vessels, and therefore our sailors
have concluded this delusion could come from no other than the
great deceiver, the devil.”

This accusation, the good bishop, in his desire to be
strictly impartial, will not admit on such hear-say evidence,
put is determined to, literally, “give the devil his due ;”
for he warns his readers that “we ought not to charge
that apostate spirit without a cause; for,’ he adds, “I
rather think that this devil who so suddenly makes and
unmakes these floating islands, is nothing else but the
Kraken.”

Referring to a monster described by Pliny, he repeats
his belief that “This sea-animal belongs to the Polype, or
Star-fish species ;” but he becomes very much “mixed”
between the Cephalopoda and the Asteride, between the
pedal segments, or arms, of the cuttle radiating from its
head, and the rays of a Star-fish radiating from a central
portion of the body. He evidently inclines strongly
towards a particular Star-fish, the rays of which continually
divide and subdivide themselves, or, as he describes it,
“which shoots its rays into branches like those of trees,”
and to which he gave the name of “ Medusa’s Head,’ a title
by which, in its Greek form, Gorgonocephalus, it is still
known to zoologists. “These Medusa’s Heads,” he says,

8 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

“are supposed by some seafaring people here, to be the
young of the Sea-Krake; perhaps they are its smallest
ovula.” After considering other reports concerning the
Kraken, he arrives at the following definite opinion:

“ We learn from all this that the Polype or Starfish have amongst
their various species some that are much larger than others ; and,
according to all appearance, amongst the very largest inhabitants
of the ocean. If the axiom be true that greatness or littleness
makes no change in the species, then this Krake must be of the
Polypus kind, notwithstanding its enormous size.”

His diagnosis is correct ; but it is stated with a modesty
which his detractors would do well to imitate; and his
concluding words on this subject place him in a light
very different from that in which he is popularly regarded:

“‘T do not in the least insist on this conjecture being true,” he
writes, “ but willingly submit my suppositions in this and every
other dubious matter to the judgment of those who are better
experienced. If I was an admirer of uncertain reports and fabu-
lous stories, I might here add much more concerning this and other
Norwegian sea-monsters, whose existence I will not take upon me
to deny, but do not chuse, by a mixture of uncertain relations to
make such account appear doubtful as I myself believe to be true
and well attested. I shall therefore quit the subject here, and
leave it to future writers on this plan to complete what I have
imperfectly sketched out, by further experience, which is always
the best instructor.

97)

It is easy to recognise in Pontoppidan’s description of
the Kraken, the form and habits of one of the “ Cuttle-
fishes,” so-called. The appearance of its numerous arms,
with which it gathers in its food, and which grow thicker
and thicker as they rise above the surface, is just what
would take place in the case of one of the pelagic species
of these mollusks raising its head out of the sea. The

-

THE KRAKEN. 9

rendering of the water turbid and thick by the emission of
a substance which the narrator supposed to be fecal
matter, is exactly that which occurs when a cuttle dis-
charges the contents of the remarkable organ known as
its ink-bag ; and the strong and peculiar scent mentioned
as appertaining to it, is actually characteristic of its inky
secretion. The musky odour referred to, is more percep-
tible in some species than in others. In one of the Octo-
pods (Lvledone moschatus), it is so strong, that the specific
name of the animal is derived from it.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, who were well ac-
quainted with the various kinds of cuttles and regarded
them all as excellent food, and even as delicacies of the
table, applied the word “polypus” especially to the
octopus. But Pontoppidan evidently uses it as descriptive
of all the cephalopods. It must not be forgotten, however,
that when he wrote, science was only slowly recovering
from neglect of many centuries’ duration. In the en-
lightened times of Greece and Rome, natural history
flourished, and as in our day, attracted and occupied the
attention of the man of science, and afforded recreation to
the man of business and the politician. Aristotle wrote
322 years before the birth of Christ, and his works are
monuments of practical wisdom. When we consider the
period during which he lived, and the isolated nature of his
labours, and compare them with the information which he
possessed, we are astonished at his sagacity and the great
scope and general accuracy of his knowledge. Pliny, 240
years later, lived in times more favourable for the cultiva-
tion of science; but with all his advantages made little
improvement on the work of the great master. And then,
later still, the sun of learning set; and there came over
Europe the long night of the dark ages which succeeded

10 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Roman greatness, during which science was degraded and
ignorance prevailed ; and it is not till the middle of the
sixteenth century, that the zoologist finds much to interest
and instruct him. When we further reflect, that until
within the past five and twenty years—till our large
aquaria were constructed—Aristotle’s knowledge of the
habits and life-history of marine animals, and amongst them
the cephalopods, was incomparably greater and more perfect
than that possessed by any man who had lived since he
recorded his observations, we cannot help feeling that in
‘some departments of knowledge there is still lost ground to
be recovered.

In the old days of the Czsars, a Greek or Roman house-
wife who was accustomed to see the cuttle, the squid, and
the octopus daily exposed for sale in the markets, would
of course have laughed at the idea of mistaking the one for
the other ; but there are comparatively few persons in our
own country, at the present day, except those who have
made marine zoology their study, whose ideas on the sub-
ject are not exceedingly hazy. This want of technical
knowledge is not confined to the masses ; but is common,
if not general, amongst those who have been well educated,
and is frequently apparent even in leaders in the daily
papers—the productions, for the most part, of men of
receptive minds, trained discrimination, and great general
knowledge. As the subject is one in which I have long
felt especial interest, I venture to hope that I may succeed
in making clear the difference between the eight-footed
octopus and its ten-footed relatives, and thus enable the
reader to identify the member of the family from which we
are to strip the dress and “make up” in which it masque-
raded as the Kraken, and cause it to appear in its true
and natural form.

: THE KRAKEN. II

One of the great primary groups or divisions of the
animal kingdom is that of the soft-bodied mollusca ; which
includes the cuttle, the oyster, the snail, &c. It has been
separated into five “classes,” of which the one we have
especially to notice is the Cephalopoda,* or “ head-footed,”
—the animals belonging to it having their feet, or the
organs which correspond with the foot of other molluscs, so
attached to the head as to form a circle or coronet round
the mouth. Some of these have the foot divided into eight
segments, and are therefore called the Octofoda:f others
have, in addition to the eight feet, lobes, or arms, two
longer tentacular appendages, making ten in all, and are
consequently called the Decapoda.

Of the ten-footed section of the cephalopods, there are
four “families ;” two only of which exist in Britain—the
Teuthide, and the Sepizde. The Teuthide are the Cala-
maries, popularly known as “ Squids,” and are represented
by the long-bodied Loligo vulgaris, that has internally
along its back a gristly, translucent stiffener, shaped like a
quill-pen ; from which and its ink it derives its names of
“calamary” (from “calamus,” a “pen”), “pen-and-ink
fish,” and “sea-clerk.” The Sepzzde are generally known
as the Cuttles proper. As a type of them we may take the
common “cuttle-fish,” Sepza officinalis, the owner of the
hard, calcareous shell often thrown up on the shore, and
known as “cuttle-bone,” or “ sea-biscuit.”

It must here be remarked, that as these head-footed mol-
lusks are not “ fish,” any more than lobsters, crabs, oysters,
mussels, &c., which fishmongers call “shell-fish,” are “ fish,”
the word “fish” is misleading, and should be abandoned ;
and secondly, that the names “cuttle” and “ squid,” as dis-

* From the Greek words cefhale, the head ; and oda, fect.
{| From ocfo, eight ;-and fous (foda), feet.

I2 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

tinctive appellations, are unsatisfactory. The word “cuttle”
is derived from “cuddle,” to hug, or embrace—in allusion
to the manner in which the animal seizes its prey, and en-
folds it in its arms; and “squid” is derived from “squirt,”
in reference to its habit of squirting water or ink. But as
all the known members of the class, except the pearly
nautilus, Mautilus pompilius, have these habits in common,
the distinguishing terms are hardly apposite. As, however,
they are conventionally accepted and understood, I prefer
to use them. As with other mollusks, so with the cepha-
lopods, some have shells, and some are naked or have only
rudimentary shells. The Argonaut, or paper nautilus, has
been regarded as the analogue of the snail, which, like it,
secretes an external shell for the protection of its soft body ;
and the octopus as that of the garden slug, which, having
organs like those of the snail, as the octopus has organs
like those of the shell-bearing argonaut, has no shell. The
cuttles and squids may be compared to some of the sea-
slugs, as Aplysia and Lullea, and to some land-slugs, as
Parmacella and Limax, which have an internal shell.

The argonaut and the other families of the cephalopods
do not come within the scope of this treatise ; we will there-
fore confine our attention to the three above mentioned. Of
the anatomy and homology of the Octopus, Sepia, and Cala-
mary we need say no more than will suffice to show in what
manner they resemble each other, and wherein they differ,
in order that we may the more clearly perceive to which of
them the story of the Kraken probably owes its origin.

The octopus, the sepia, and the calamary are all con-
structed on one fundamental plan. A bag of fleshy
muscular skin, called the mantle-sac, contains the organs
of the body, heart, stomach, liver, intestines, a pair of gills

by which oxygen is absorbed from the water for the puri-

THE KRAKEN. 13

fication of the blood, and an excurrent tube by which the
water thus deprived of its life-sustaining gas is expelled.
The outrush of water with more or less force, from this
“ syphon-tube,” is also the principal source of locomotion
when the animal is swimming, as it propels it backward—not
by the striking of the expelled fluid against the surrounding
water, as is generally supposed; but by the unbalanced
pressure of the fluid acting inside the body in the direction
in which the creature goes. Into this syphon-tube, or
funnel, opens, by a special duct, the ink-bag; and from it
is squirted at will the intensely black fluid therein secreted.
I doubt very much the correctness of the statement
mentioned by Pontoppidan and others, that the cuttle
ejects its ink with a desire to lie hidden and in ambush
for its intended prey, or with the intention to attract fish
within its reach by their partiality for the musky odour of
this secretion. It may be so, but during the long period
that I had these animals under close observation at the
Brighton Aquarium, I never witnessed such an incident.
I believe that the emission of the ink is a symptom
of fear, and is only employed as a means of conceal-
ment from a suspected enemy. I have found, that
when first taken, the Segza, of all its kind, is the most
sensitively timid. Its keen, unwinking eye watches for
and perceives the slightest movement of its captor; and if
even most cautiously looked at from above, its ink is
belched forth in eddying volumes, rolling over and over
like the smoke which follows the discharge of a great gun
from a ship’s port, and mixes with marvellous rapidity with
the surrounding water. But, like all of its class, the Sepia
is very intelligent. It soon learns to discriminate between
friend and foe, and ultimately becomes very tame, and
ceases to shoot its ink, unless it be teased and excited. By

14 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

means of the communication between the ink-bag and the
locomotor tube, it happens that when the ink is ejected,
a stream of water is forcibly emitted with it, and thus the
very effort for escape serves the double purpose of pro-
pelling the creature away from danger, and discolouring
the water in which it moves. Oppian has well described
this—
“ The endangered cuttle thus evades his fears,

And native hoards of fluids safely wears.

A pitchy ink peculiar glands supply

Whose shades the sharpest beam of light defy.

Pursued, he bids the sable fountains flow,

And, wrapt in clouds, eludes the impending foe.

The fish retreats unseen, while self-born night

With pious shade befriends her parent’s flight.”

Professor Owen has remarked that the ejection of the
ink of the cephalopods serves by its colour as a means of
defence, as corresponding secretions in some of the mam-
malia by their odour.

It is worthy of notice that the pearly nautilus and the
allied fossil forms are without this means of concealment,
which their strong external shells render unnecessary for
their protection.

From the sac-like body containing the various organs,
protrudes a head, globose in shape, and containing a brain,
and furnished with a pair of strong, horny mandibles, which
bite vertically, like the beak of a parrot. By these the
flesh of prey is torn and partly masticated, and within
them lies the tongue, covered with recurved and retrac-
tile teeth, like that of its distant relatives, the whelk,
limpet, &c., by which the food is conducted to the gullet.
Around this head is, as I have said, the organ which is
equivalent to the foot in other molluscs—that by which
the slug and the snail crawl—only that the head is

THE KRAKEN. 15

Placed in the centre, instead of in the front of it, and it
is divided into segments, which radiate from this central
head. These segments are very flexible, and capable of
movement in every direction, and are thus developed
into arms, prehensile limbs, by which their owner can
seize and hold its living prey. That this may be more
perfectly accomplished, these arms are studded along
their inner surface with rows of sucking discs, in each of
which, by means of a retractile piston, a vacuum can
be produced. The consequent pressure of the outer at-
mosphere or water, causes them to adhere firmly to any
substance to which they are applied, whether stone, fish,
crustacean, or flesh of man.

But, although in all these highly-organised head-footed
mollusks the same general build prevails, it is admirably
modified in each of them to suit certain habits and neces-
' sities. ‘Thus the octopus, being a shore dweller, its soft
and pliant, but very tough body, having merely a very
small and rudimentary indication of an internal shell (just
a little “style”) is exactly adapted for wedging itself
amongst crevices of rocks. A large, rigid, cellular float, or
“sepiostaire,” such as Sepa possesses, or a long, horny pen
such as Lofzgo has, would be in the way, and worse than
useless in such places as the octopus inhabits. Its eight
long powerful arms or feet are precisely fitted for clamber-
ing over rocks and stones, and as its food of course consists
principally of the living things most abundant in such
localities, namely, the shore-crabs, its great flexible suckers,
devoid of hooks or horny armature, are exactly adapted to
firm and air-tight attachment to the smooth shells of the
crustacea.

Unlike the octopus, which is capable only of short flights
through the water, the “cuttles” and “squids,” such as

16 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Sepia and Loligo, are all free swimmers. For them it is
necessary for accuracy of natation that their soft, and in
the squids long bodies, should be supported by such a
framework as they possess. In Sefza, the mantle-sac is
flattened horizontally all along its lateral edges so as to
form a pair of fins, which nearly surround the trunk. These
fins could never be used, as they are, to enable the animal
to poise itself delicately in the water by means of their
beautiful undulations, which I have often watched with
delight, if their attached edges were not kept in a straight
line on either side. Then, these ten-footed or ten-armed
genera have not, because they need them not, eight long,

FIG. I.— BEAK AND ARMS OF A DECAPOD CUTTLE,.

a, the eight shorter arms ; Z, the tentacles ; /, the funnel, or locomotor tube.

strong and highly mobile arms like those of the octopus, nor
have they large suckers upon them. Whereas a great length
of reach is an advantage to the octopus, animals which are
purely swimmers, and which hunt and overtake their prey
by speed, would be impeded by having to drag after them
a bundle of stout, lengthy appendages trailing heavily
astern. Their eight pedal arms are short and comparatively
weak, though strong enough, in individuals such as are
regarded on our own coasts as fullgrown, to seize and hold

THE KRAKEN. 17

a fish or crustacean as strong as a good sized shore-crab.
But, as compensation for the shortness of the eight arms, they
are provided with two others more than three times the
length of the short ones. These are so slender that they
generally lie coiled up in a spiral cone in two pockets, one
on each side, just below the eye, when the animal is
quiescent, and are only seen when it takes its food. These
long, slender tentacular arms are expanded at their extre-
mity, and the inner surface of their enlarged part is studded
with suckers—some of them larger in size than those on
the eight shorter arms. As the food of these swimmers
consists, of course, chiefly of fish, their sucking disks are
curiously modified for the better retention of a slippery
captive. A horny ring with a sharply serrated edge is im-
bedded in the outer circumference of each of them, and
when a vacuum is formed, the keen, saw-like teeth are
pressed into the skin or scales of the unfortunate prisoner,
and deprive it of the slightest chance of escape.

The manner in which the eight-armed and ten-armed
cephalopods capture their prey is similar in principle and
‘plan, but differs in action in accordance with their mode of
life. The ordinary habit of the octopus is either to rest
suspended to the side of a rock to which it clings with the
suckers of several of its arms, or to remain lurking in some
favourite cranny ; its body thrust for protection and conceal-
ment well back in the interior of the recess ; its bright eyes
keenly on the watch; three or four of its limbs firmly
attached to the walls of its hiding place—the others gently
waving, gliding, and feeling about in the water, as if to
-maintain its vigilance, and keep itself always on the alert,
and in readiness to pounce on any unfortunate wayfarer
that may pass near its den. Toa shore-crab that comes
within its reach the slightest contact with one of those lithe

C

18 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

i i i

Ce Hs |
eC eT ON
i : = =. Se
| i ) | : i We | Mit é 2 :
ie oe
‘i ae Ne @ H) 3
A AW 7 ZEN ‘\ n 12 | i R
i | I
Up Ls \ Ss

hi

Limit | i

Hf
|

FIG. 2,—THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris).

THE KRAKEN. 19

arms is fatal. Instantaneously as pull of trigger brings
down a bird, or touch of electric wire explodes a torpedo or
a mining fuse, the pistons of the series of suckers are
simultaneously drawn inward, the air is removed from the
pneumatic holders, and a vacuum created in each: the crab
tries to escape, but in a second is completely pinioned :
not a movement, not a struggle is possible ; each leg, each
claw is grasped all over by suckers, enfolded in them,
stretched out to its fullest extent by them; the back of
the carapace is completely covered by the tenacious disks,
brought together by the adaptable contractions of the limb,
and ranged in close order, shoulder to shoulder, touching
each other; and the pressure of the air is so great that
nothing can effect the relaxation of their retentive power but
the destruction of the air-pump that works them, or the
closing of the throttle-valve by which they are connected
with it. Meanwhile the abdominal plates of the captive
crab are dragged towards the mouth ; the black tip of the
hard horny beak is seen for a single instant protruding
from the circular orifice in the centre of the radiation of
the arms ; and, the next, has crushed through the shell, and
is buried deep in the flesh of the victim.

Unlike the skulking, hiding octopus, its ten-armed rela-
tive, the Sepia loves the daylight and the freedom of the
upper water. Its predatory acts are not those of a con-
cealed and ambushed brigand lying’ in wait behind a
rock, or peeping furtively from within the gloomy shadow
of a cave; but it may better be compared to the war-like
Comanche vidette seated gracefully on his horse, and scan-
ning from some elevated knoll a wide expanse of prairie, in
readiness to swoop upon a weak or unarmed foe. Poised
near the surface of the water, like a hawk in the air, the
Sepia moves gently to and fro by graceful undulations of

C2%

20 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

its lateral fins,—an exquisite play of colour occasionally
taking place over its beautifully barred and mottled back.
When thus tranquil, its eight pedal arms are usually
brought close together, and droop in front of its head, like
the trunk of an elephant, shortened ; its two longer tenta-
cular arms being coiled up within their pouches and unseen.
Only when some small fish approaches it does it arouse
itself. Then, its eyes dilate, and its colours become more
bright and vivid. It carefully takes aim, advancing or
retreating to such a distance as will just allow the two
hidden tentacles to reach the quarry when they shall be shot
out. Next, the two highest or central feet are lifted up,
and the three others on each side are spread aside, so that
they may be all out of the way of the two concealed ten-
tacles, presently to be launched forth; and then, in a
moment—so instantaneously that the eye of an observer,
be he ever so watchful, can hardly see the act—this pair
of tentacles, side by side, are projected and withdrawn, as
if in a flash. The fish or shrimp has vanished, the suckers
of the dilated ends of the tentacles having adhered to it,
and left it, as they re-entered their pouches, within the fatal
“cuddle,” or embrace, where it is torn to pieces by the
devouring beak.* This action of the tentacles of the
decapods is the most rapid motion that I know of in the
whole animal kingdom—not excepting even that of the

* See an excellent article in the F7e/d, Sept. 2, 1876, on the * Ten
Footed Cuttle’ (Sepza officinalis), by the late Mr. W. A. Lloyd, an
earnest and accomplished aquatic zoologist ; eccentric, but in all that
relates to the construction and management of an aquarium a master
of his craft. It was his wish that in any future edition of my little
book on the Octopus, or other writings on the cephalopods, I should
use the woodcuts which illustrated his articles on Sepia and Octopus.
By the kind permission of the proprietors of the /7ze/d, I reproduce
them in suitable size for these pages.

THE KRAKEN. 21

ie
:

|

*(sqpuingfo vigas) AILLND AHL—'E ‘pla

22 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

tongue of the toad and the lizard. These long tentacles
are not used when the food is within reach of the shorter
arms.

The calamaries or squids of our British Seas seize their
prey in the same manner as Seva, and the description of one
will suffice for both. But there exist two groups of them,
which are armed with curved and sharp-pointed hooks or
claws, either in addition to, or instead of suckers. In the
one group (Oxychoteuthis), the hooks are restricted to the
extremities of the pair of tentacles, in the other (Exoploteu-
this), both the tentacles and the shorter arms have hooks.
Professor Owen, in his description of these hook-armed
calamaries in the Cyclopedia of Anatomy, notices also
another structure which adds greatly to their prehensile
power (Fig. 4.). “At the extremity of the long tentacles a clus-
ter of small, simple, unarmed suckers may be observed at the
base of the expanded part. When these latter suckers are
applied to one another the tentacles are securely locked
together at that part, and the united strength of both the
elongated peduncles can be applied to drag towards the
mouth any resisting object which has been grappled by the
terminal hooks. There is no mechanical contrivance which
surpasses this structure; art has remotely imitated it in
the fabrication of the obstetrical forceps, in which either
blade can be used separately, or, by the inter-locking of a
temporary blade, be made to act in combination.”

The cephalopods obtain and eat their food very much
like the rapacious birds. They are the falcons of the sea.
Some of them, like Oxychoteuthis, strike their prey with
talons and suckers also, others lay hold of it with
suckers ‘alone ; but they all tear the flesh with their beaks,
and swallow and digest their food in the same manner as
the hawk or vulture.

THE KRAKEN. 23

The Sefza, the owner of the broad, flattened bone, has a
decided predilection for the vicinity of the shore, and for

comparatively shallow water. It
there attaches its grape-like eggs
to some convenient stone or grow-
ing alga, and delights occasionally
to sink to the bottom, and there
to rest half covered by the sand,
a habit for which the form of its
body is well adapted. But the
calamaries—they of the horny pen
—prefer the wide waters of the
open ocean; and although they,
too, especially the smaller species,
are common upon the coasts, they
are frequently met with far out at
sea, and away from any land. The
elongated and almost arrow-like
shape of their bodies enables them
to glide through the water with
great rapidity, and the momentum
exerted by a vigorous out-rush from

their syphon-tube is sometimes so i

great that when the opposite pres- \

sure thus produced is so exerted as
to cause them to take an upward
direction they leap out of the water
to so great a height as to fall on the
decks of ships; and are, therefore,
called by sailors, “flying squids.”
Their spawn is very different from
that of either octopus, or sepia. It
consists of dozens of semi-trans-

FIG. 4.—HOOKED TENTACLES
OF Onychoteuthis.

24 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

parent, gelatinous, slender, cylindrical sheaths, about four
or five inches long, each containing many ova imbedded
in it (making a total number of about 40,000 embryos), all
springing from a common centre and resembling a mop
without a handle. I have never seen any of these “ sea-
mops” attached to anything, and the pelagic habits of the
calamaries render it probable that they are left floating on
the surface of the sea.

Having made ourselves acquainted with the structure
and habits of these three divisions of the eight-footed and
ten-footed mollusks, let us take evidence as to the size to
which they are respectively known to attain, and the degree
in which they may be regarded as dangerous to man.

An octopus from our own coasts having arms two feet in
length may be considered a rather large specimen; and
Dr. J. E. Gray, who was always most kindly ready to place
at the disposal of any sincere inquirer the vast store of
knowledge laid up in his wonderful memory, told me that
“there is not one in the British Museum which exceeds
this size, or which would not go into a quart pot—body,
arms and all.” The largest British specimen I have hitherto
seen had arms 2 ft. 6 in. long. We have sufficient evidence,
however, that it exceeds this in the South of France, and
along the Spanish and Italian coasts of the Mediterranean ;
and my deceased friend John Keast Lord tells us in his
book, ‘The Naturalist in British Columbia,’ that he saw
and measured, in Vancouver's Island, an octopus which
had arms five feet long.

I have often been asked whether an octopus of
the ordinary size can really be dangerous to bathers.
Decidedly, “Yes,” in certain situations. The holding
power of its numerous suckers is enormous. It is
almost impossible forcibly to detach it from its adhesion

THE KRAKEN. 25

to a rock or the flat bottom of a tank; and if a large one
happened to fix one or more of its strong, tough arms on
the leg of a swimmer whilst the others held firmly to a rock,
I donbt if the man could disengage himself under water
by mere strength, before being exhausted. Fortunately
the octopus can be made to relax its hold by grasping it
tightly round the “throat” (if I may so call it), and it may
be well that this should be known.

That men are occasionally drowned by these creatures
is, unhappily, a fact too well. attested. I have else-
where* related several instances of this having occurred.
Omitting those, I will give two or three others which have
since come under my notice. Sir Grenville Temple, in his
‘Excursions in the Mediterranean Sea,’ tells how a Sardinian
captain, whilst bathing at Jerbeh, was seized and drowned
by an octopus. When his body was found, his limbs were
bound together by the arms of the animal; and this took
place in water only four feet deep.

Mr. J. K. Lord’s account of the formidable strength of
these creatures in Oregon is confirmed by an incident
recorded in the Weekly Oregonian (the principal paper of
Oregon) of October 6th, 1877. A few days before that
date an Indian woman, whilst bathing, was held beneath
the surface by an octopus, and drowned. The body was
discovered on the following day in the horrid embrace of
the creature. Indians dived down and with their knives
severed the arms of the octopus and recovered the corpse.

Mr. Clemens Laming, in his book, ‘The French in Al-
giers, writes :—“The soldiers were in the habit of bathing
in the sea every evening, and from time to time several of
them disappeared—no one knew how. Bathing was, in

* See ‘The Octopus; or, the Devil-fish of Fiction and of Fact.’
1873. Chapman and Hall, |

26 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

consequence, strictly forbidden ; in spite of which several
men went into the water one evening. Suddenly one of
them screamed for help, and when several others rushed to
his assistance they found that an octopus had seized him
by the leg by four of its arms whilst it clung to the rock
with the rest. The soldiers brought the ‘monster’ home
with them, and out of revenge they boiled it alive and ate
it. This adventure accounted for the disappearance of the
other soldiers.”

The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, who for more than a quarter
of a century has resided as a missionary amongst the in-
habitants of the Hervey Islands, and with whom I had the
pleasure of conversing on this subject when he was in
England in 1875, described in the Lezsure Hour of April
20th, 1872, another mode of attack by which an octopus might
deprive a man of life. A servant of his went diving for
“poulpes” (octopods), leaving his son in charge of the
canoe. After a short time he rose to the surface, his arms
free, but his nostrils and mouth completely covered by a
large octopus. If his son had not promptly torn the
living plaister from off his face he must have been suffo-
cated—a fate which actually befel some years previously a
man who foolishly went diving alone.

In Appleton’s American Fournal of Science and Art,
January 31st, 1874, a correspondent describes an attack
by an octopus on a diver who was at work on the wreck of
a sunken steamer off the coast of Florida. The man, a power-
ful Irishman, was helpless in its grasp, and would have been
drowned if he had not been quickly brought to the surface; .
for when dragged on to the raft from which he had
descended, he fainted, and his companions were unable to
pull the creature from its hold upon him until they had
dealt it a sharp blow across its baggy body.

THE KRAKEN. 27

A similar incident occurred to the government diver of
the colony of Victoria, Australia. Whilst pursuing his
avocation in the estuary of the river Moyne he was seized
by an octopus. He killed it by striking it with an iron
bar, and brought to shore with him a portion of it with the
arms more than three feet long.

Mr. Laurence Oliphant, in his ‘China and Japan,’ describes
a Japanese show, which consisted of “a series of groups
of figures carved in wood, the size of life, and as cleverly
coloured as Madame Tussaud’s wax-works. One of these
was a group of women bathing in the sea. One of them
had been caught in the folds of a cuttle-fish; the others,
in alarm, were escaping, leaving their companion to her
fate. The cuttle-fish was represented on a huge scale, its
eyes, eyelids, and mouth being made to move simultane-
ously by a man inside the head.”

An attack of this kind is most artistically represented
in a small Japanese ivory-carving in the possession of
Mr. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens.*

The Japanese are well acquainted with the octopus; for
it is commonly depicted on their ornaments, and forms no
unimportant item in their fisheries.

I have recently had an opportunity of inspecting a most
curious Japanese book, in the possession of my friend Mr.
W. B. Tegetmeier, which is chiefly devoted to the repre-
sentations of the fisheries and fish-curing processes of the
country. It is in three volumes, and is entitled, ‘Land and
Sea Products,’ by Ki Kone. It is evidently ancient, for it
is slightly worm-eaten, but the plates, each 12 inches by

* This carving was figured in illustration of an interesting paper
by Professor Owen, C.B., F.R.S., &c., “On some new and rare
Cephalopoda,” in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, April 20,
1880.

28 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

8 inches, are full of vigour. Two of these illustrate in a
very interesting manner the subject before us, and by the
kindness of Mr. Tegetmeier I am able to give facsimiles of
them, which appeared with an article by him on this book,
in the Fze/d of March 14th, 1874. Fig. 5 represents a fisher-
man in a boat out at sea: a gigantic octopus has thrown
one of its arms over the side of the boat; the man, who is
alone, has started forward from the stern of the boat, and
has succeeded, by means of a large knife attached to a long
handle, in lopping off the dangerous limb of his enemy.
As Mr. Tegetmeier says, “From the extreme matter of fact
manner in which all these engravings are made, and the total
absence of exaggeration in any other representation, I can-
not but regard the relative sizes of the man, the boat, and
the octopus, as correctly given, in which case we have
evidence of the existence of gigantic cephalopods in
Japanese waters.” The only doubt I have is whether the
fisherman correctly described his assailant as an octopus,
and whether it was not a calamary. Fig. 6 is a vivid
picture of a fishmonger’s shop in a market, under the awn-
ing of which may be seen two arms ofa gigantic cuttle hung
up for sale as food. These are evidently of most unusual
size, judging from the action of the lookers on ; the one
to the left, with a tall stand or case on his back, like a
Parisian cocoa-vendor, is holding out his hand in mute
astonishment ; whilst the attention of the smaller personage
in the right-hand corner is directed to the suspended arms
of the cuttle by the man nearest to him; who is pointing to
them with upraised hand. In another plate in this most
interesting work a Japanese mode of fishing for cuttles is
delineated. A man in a boat is tossing crabs, one at a
time, into the sea, and when a cuttle rises at the bait he
spears it with a trident and tosses it into the boat.

THE KRAKEN,

-

oe ESS
Sn 3 oy Ma
SRT AUS — =? CH Q a 1 =
2 = ELS — KY’) =

—=—=_T—_ ‘= =
oe = =
—— <=
SSS
=
SSS SS
——er

ae.

i
ZG

J

=.
=
=
—
—

OH
Cl

&

FIG. 6.—ARMS OF A GREAT CUTTLE EXHIBITED IN A JAPANESE
FISHMONGER’S SHOP.

29

30 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

The octopus, therefore, though not abundant on our own
coasts, is found in every seain the temperate zone ; and in
so far as that it secretes an ink with which it can render
the water turbid, and has many radiating arms with which
it can seize and drown a man, it possesses certain attri-
butes of the Kraken ; but we have no authentic knowledge
of its ever attaining to greater dimensions than I have
stated, nor does it bask on the surface of the sea. It is not
amongst the Octopide therefore that we must look for a
solution of the mystery.

The basking condition is fulfilled by the Sepia; and its
flattened back, supported and rendered hard and firm to
the touch by the calcareous sepiostaire beneath the skin, is
broader in proportion than that of the octopus or the squid.
Thus Sepia might pass as a microscopic miniature of the
great Scandinavian monster. But it lacks the character of
size. We have no reason to believe that any true Sepia
exists, as the family is now understood, that has a body
more than eighteen inches long. Ifit were otherwise it would
be more likely to be known of this family than of its relatives,
for its lightly constructed and well known “ cuttle-bone”
would float on the surface for many weeks after the death
of its owner, and large specimens of it would be seen and
recognised from passing ships.

As we can find no species of the Octopide or Sepiide
which can furnish a pretext for the stories told of the
Kraken, we must try to ascertain how far a similitude to it
may be traced in the third family we have discussed, the
Teuthide.

The belief in the existence of gigantic cuttles is an
ancient one. Aristotle mentions it, and Pliny tells of an
enormous polypus which at Carteia, in Grenada—an old
and important Roman colony near Gibraltar—used to

THE KRAKEN. 31

come out of the sea at night, and carry off and devour
salted tunnies from the curing depots on the shore; and
adds that when it was at last killed, the head of it (they
‘ used to call the body the head, because in swimming it
goes in advance) was found to weigh 700 lbs. Elian re-
cords a similar incident, and describes his monster as
crushing in its arms the barrels of salt fish to get at the
contents. These two must have been octopods if they
were anything; the word “polypus” thus especially
designates it, and moreover, the free-swimming cuttles and
squids would be helpless if stranded on the shore. \ Some
of the old writers seem to have aimed rather at making their
histories sensational than at carefully investigating the
credibility or the contrary of the highly coloured reports
brought to them. These were, of course, gross exaggera-
tions, but there was generally a substratum of truth in
them. They were based on the rare occurrence of speci-
mens, smaller certainly, but still enormous, of some known
species, and in most cases the worst that can be said of
their authors is that they were culpably careless and fool-
ishly credulous.

Unhappily so lenient a judgment cannot be passed on
some comparatively recent writers. Denys de Montfort,
half a century later than Pontoppidan, not only professed
to believe in the Kraken, but also in the existence of
another gigantic animal distinct from it ; a colossal poz/lpe,
or octopus, compared with which Pliny’s was a mere
pigmy. In a drawing fitter to decorate the outside of a
showman’s caravan at a fair than seriously to illustrate a
work on natural history,* he depicted this tremendous
cuttle as throwing its arms over a three masted vessel,

* ‘Histoire Naturelle générale et particulitre des Mollusques,’
vol. il., p. 256.

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Y

FIG. 7.—FACSIMILE OF DE MONTFORT’S ‘‘foulfe colossal.”

THE KRAKEN. ! 33

snapping off its masts, tearing down the yards, and on the
point of dragging it to the bottom, if the crew had not suc-
ceeded in cutting off its immense limbs with cutlasses and
hatchets. De Montfort had good opportunities of obtain-
ing information, for he was at one time an assistant in the
geological department of the Museum of Natural History,
in Paris; and wrote a work on conchology,* besides that
already referred to. But it appears to have been his de-
liberate purpose to cajole the public; for it is reported
that he exclaimed to M. Defrance: “If my entangled
ship is accepted, I will make my ‘colossal poulpe’ over-
throw a whole fleet.” Accordingly we find him gravely
declaring t that one of the great victories of the British
navy was converted into a disaster by the monsters
which are the subject of his history. He boldly asserted
that the six men-of-war captured from the French by
Admiral Rodney in the West Indies on the 12th of April,
1782, together with four British ships detached from his
fleet to convoy the prizes, were all suddenly engulphed in
the waves on the night of the battle under such circum-
stances as showed that the catastrophe was caused by
colossal cuttles,and not by a gale or any ordinary casualty.

Unfortunately for De Montfort, the inexorable logic of
facts not only annihilates his startling theory, but demon-
strates the reckless falsity of his plausible statements. The
captured vessels did not sink on the night of the action,
but were all sent to Jamaica to refit, and arrived there
safely. Five months afterwards, however, a convoy of nine
line-of-battle ships (amongst which were Rodney’s prizes),
one frigate, and about a hundred merchantmen, were dis-
persed, whilst on their voyage to England, by a violent

* *Conchyliologie Systématique.’
T ‘ Hist. Nat. des Moll.,’ vol. ii., pp. 358 to 368.
D

34 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

storm, during which some of them unfortunately foundered.
The various accidents which preceded the loss of these
vessels was related in evidence to the Admiralty by the
survivors, and official documents prove that De Montfort’s
fleet-destroying powlpe was an invention of his own, and
had no part whatever in the disaster that he attributed
to it.

I have been told, but cannot vouch for the truth of
the report, that De Montfort’s propensity to write that
which was not true culminated in his committing forgery,
and that he died in the galleys. But he records a state-
ment of Captain Jean Magnus Dens, said to have been
a respectable and veracious man, who, after having made
several voyages to China as a master trader, retired from a
seafaring life and lived at Dunkirk. He told De Montfort
that in one of his voyages, whilst crossing from St. Helena
to Cape Negro, he was becalmed, and took advantage of
the enforced idleness of the crew to have the vessel scraped
and painted. Whilst three of his men were standing on
planks slung over the side, an enormous cuttle rose from
the water, and threw one of its arms around two of the
sailors, whom it tore away, with the scaffolding on which
they stood. With another arm it seized the third man, who
held on tightly to the rigging, and shouted for help. His
shipmates ran to his assistance, and succeeded in rescuing
him by cutting away the creature’s arm with axes and
knives, but he died delirious on the following night. The
captain tried to save the other two sailors by killing the
animal, and drove several harpoons into it; but they broke
away, and the men were carried down by the monster.

The arm cut off was said to have been twenty-five feet
long, and as thick as the mizen-yard, and to have had on it

suckers as big as saucepan-lids. I believe the old sea- -

THE KRAKEN. 35

captain’s narrative of the incident to be true ; the dimensions
given by De Montfort are wilfully and deliberately false.
The belief in the power of the cuttle to sink a ship and
devour her crew is as widely spread over the surface of the
globe, as it is ancient in point of time. I have been told
by a friend that he saw in a shop in China a picture of a
cuttle embracing a junk, apparently of about 300 tons
burthen, and helping itself to the sailors, as one picks
sooseberries off a bush.

Traditions of a monstrous cuttle attacking and destroying
ships are current also at the present day in the Polynesian
Islands. Mr. Gill, the missionary previously quoted, tells
us * that the natives of Aitutaki, in the Hervey group, have
a legend of a famous explorer, named Rata, who built a
double canoe, decked and rigged it, and then started off in
quest of adventures. At the prow was stationed the daunt-
less Nganaoa, armed with a long spear and ready to slay
all monsters. One day when speeding pleasantly over the
ocean, the voice of the ever vigilant Nganaoa was heard :
“O Rata! yonder is a terrible enemy starting up from
ocean depths.” It proved to be an octopus (query, squid ?)
of extraordinary dimensions. Its huge tentacles encircled
the vessel in their embrace, threatening its instant destruc-
tion. At this critical moment Nganaoa seized his spear, and
fearlessly drove it through the head of the creature. The
tentacles slowly relaxed, and the dead monster floated off
on the surface of the ocean.

Passing from the early records of the appearance of
cuttles of unusual size, and the current as well as
the traditional belief in their existence by the inhabitants
of many countries, let us take the testimony of travellers
and naturalists who have a right to be regarded as com-

* Leisure Hour, October, 1875, p. 636.
ry 2

36 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

petent observers. In so doing we must bear in mind that
until Professor Owen propounded the very clear and con-
venient classification now universally adopted, the squids,
as well as the eight-footed Octofid@, were all grouped
under the title of Sepza.

Pernetty, describing a voyage made by him in the years
1763-4,* mentions gigantic cuttles met with in the Southern
Seas.

Shortly afterwards, during the first week in March 1769,
Banks and Solander, the scientific fellow-voyagers with
Lieutenant Cook (afterwards the celebrated Captain Cook),
in H.M.S. Endeavour, found in the North Pacific, in lati-
tude 38° 44’ S. and longitude 110° 33’ W., a large calamary
which had just been killed by the birds, and was floating in
a mangled condition on the water. Its arms were furnished,
instead of suckers, with a double row of very sharp talons,
which resembled those of a cat, and, like them, were retract-
able into a sheath of skin from which they might be thrust
at pleasure. Of this cuttle they say, with evident pleasur-
able remembrance of a savoury meal, they made one of the
best soups they ever tasted. Professor Owen tells us, in the
paper already referred to, that when he was curator of the
Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and
preparing, in 1820, his first catalogue thereof, he was struck
with the number of oceanic invertebrates which Hunter had
obtained. He learned from Mr. Clift that Hunter had sup-
plied Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks with stoppered
bottles containing alcohol, in which to preserve the new
marine animals that he might meet with during the circum-
navigatory voyage about to be undertaken by Cook.
Thinking it probable that Banks might have stowed some
parts of this great hook-armed squid in one of these bottles for

® ‘Voyage aux Iles Malouines.’

THE KRAKEN. 37

his anatomical friend, he searched for, and found in a bottle
marked “J. B.,” portions of its arms, the beak with tongue, a
heart ventricle, &c., and, amongst the dry preparations, the
terminal part of the body, with an attached pair of rhom-
boidal fins. The remainder had furnished Cook and his
companions Banks and Solander with a welcome change of
diet in the commander’s cabin of the Exdeavour. As the
inner surface of the arms of the squid, as well as the
terminals of its tentacles, were studded with hooks, Professor
Owen named it Exoploteuthis Cookit. He estimates the
diameter of the tail fin at 15 inches, the length of its body
3 feet, of its head 10 inches, of the shorter arms 16 inches,
and of the longer tentacles about the same as its body—
~thus giving a total length of about 6ft.gin. Although
individuals of other species, of larger dimensions, are known
to have existed, this is the largest specimen of the hook-
armed calamaries that has been scientifically examined.
It would have been a formidable antagonist to a man under
circumstances favourable to the exertion of its strength, and
the use of its prehensile and lacerating talons,

Peron,* the well-known French zoologist, mentions having
seen at sea, in 1801, not far from Van Diemen’s Land, at a
very little distance from his ship, Le Géographe, a “ Sepia,”
of the size of a barrel, rolling with noise on the waves; its
arms, between 6 and 7 feet long, and 6 or 7 inches in
diameter at the base, extended on the surface, and writhing
about like great snakes. He recognised in this, and no
doubt correctly, one of the calamaries. The arms that he
saw were evidently the animal’s shorter ones, as under such
circumstances, with neither enemy to combat nor prey to
seize at the moment, the longer tentacles would remain
concealed.

* “Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes.’

38 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Quoy and Gaimard* report that in the Atlantic Ocean,
near the Equator, they found the remains of an enormous
calamary, half eaten by the sharks and birds, which could
not hcve weighed less, when entire, than 200lbs. A por-
tion of this was secured, and is preserved in the Museum of
Natural History, Paris.

Captain Sander Rangf records having fallen in with, in
mid-ocean, a species distinct from the others, of a dark red
colour, having short arms, and a body the size of a hogshead.

In a manuscript by Paulsen (referred to by Professor
Steenstrup, at a meeting of Scandinavian naturalists at
Copenhagen in 1847) is a description of a large calamary>
cast ashore on the coast of Zeeland, which the latter named
Architeuthis monachus. Its body measured 21 feet, and its
tentacles 18 feet, making a total of 39 feet.

In 1854 another was stranded at the Skag in Jutland,
which Professor Steenstrup believed to belong to the same
genus as the preceding, but to be of a different species, and
called it Architeuthis dux. The body was cut in pieces by
the fishermen for bait, and furnished many wheelbarrow
loads. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys{ says Dr. Morch informed him
that the beak of this animal was nine inches long. Headds
that another huge cephalopod was stranded in 1860 or
1861, between Hillswick and Scalloway, on the west of
Shetland. From a communication received by Professor
Allman, it appears that its tentacles were 16 feet long, the
pedal arms about half that length, and the mantle sac 7
feet. The largest suckers examined by Professor Allman
were three-quarters of an inch in diameter.

We have also the statement of the officers and crew of

* “Voyage de l’Uranie : Zoologie,’ vol. 1., part 2, p. 411. 1824.
t+ ‘Manuel des Mollusques,’ p. 86.
t ‘ British Conchology,’ vol. v., p. 124.

ae

THE KRAKEN.

—GIGANTIC CALAMARY CAUGHT BY THE FRENCH DESPATCH

8

FIG.

VESSEL ‘ALECTON,’ NEAR TENERIFFE.

40 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

the French despatch steamer, A /ecton, commanded by Lieu-
tenant Bouyer, describing their having met with a great
calamary on the 30th of November, 1861, between Madeira
and Teneriffe. It was seen about noon on that day floating
on the surface of the water, and the vessel was stopped with
a view to its capture. Many bullets were aimed at it, but
they passed through its soft flesh without doing it much
injury, until at length “the waves were observed to be
covered with foam and blood.” It had probably dis-
charged the contents of its ink-bag; for a strong odour of
musk immediately became preceptible—a perfume which I
have already mentioned as appertaining to the ink of many
of the cephalopoda, and also as being one of the reputed
attributes of the Kraken. Harpoons were thrust into it,
but would not hold in the yielding flesh; and the animal
broke adrift from them, and, diving beneath the vessel,
came up on the other side. The crew wished to launch
a boat that they might attack it at closer quarters, but the
commander forbade this, not feeling justified in risking the
lives of his men. A rope with a running knot was, however,
slipped over it, and held fast at the junction of the broad
caudal fin; but when an attempt was made to hoist it on
deck the enormous weight caused the rope to cut through
the flesh, and all but the hinder part of the body fell back into
the sea and disappeared. M. Berthelot, the French consul at
Teneriffe, saw the fin and posterior portion of the animal on
board the Afecton ten days afterwards, and sent a report
of the occurrence to the Paris Academy of Sciences. The
body of this great squid, which, like Rang’s specimen, was
of a deep-red colour, was estimated to have been from
16 feet to 18 feet long, without reckoning the length of its
formidable arms.*

* In the accompanying illustration, the size of the squid is ex-
aggerated, but not so much as has been supposed.

THE KRAKEN. 4I

These are statements made by men who, by their intelli-
gence, character, and position, are entitled to respect and
credence ; and whose evidence would be accepted without
question or hesitation in any court of law. There is, more-
over, a remarkable coincidence of particulars in their several
accounts, which gives great importance to their combined
testimony.

But, fortunately, we are not left dependent on docu-
mentary evidence alone, nor with the option of accepting
or rejecting, as caprice or prejudice may prompt us, the
narratives of those who have told us they have seen what
we have not. Portions of cuttles of extraordinary size are
preserved in several European museums. In the collection
of the Faculty of Sciences at Montpellier is one six feet
long, taken by fishermen at Cette, which Professor Steen-
strup has identified as Ommastrephes pteropus. One of the
same species, which was formerly in the possession of M.
Eschricht, who received it from Marseilles, may be seen in
the museum at Copenhagen. The body of another,
analogous to these, is exhibited in the Museum of Trieste :
it was taken on the coast of Dalmatia. At the meeting of
the British Association at Plymouth in 1841, Colonel Smith
exhibited drawings of the beak and other parts of a very
large calamary preserved at Haarlem; and M. P. Harting,
in 1860, described in the Memoirs of the Royal Scientific
Academy of Amsterdam portions of two extant in other
collections in Holland, one of which he believes to be Steen-
strup's Architeuthis dux, a species which he regards as
identical with Ommastrephes todarus of D’Orbigny.

Still there remained a residuum of doubt in the minds of
naturalists and the public concerning the existence of
gigantic cuttles until, towards the close of the year 1873,
two specimens were encountered on the coast of New-

42 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

foundland, and a portion of one and the whole of the other,
were brought ashore, and preserved for examination by
competent zoologists.

The circumstances under which the first was seen, as
sensationally described by the Rev. M. Harvey, Presby-
terian minister of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in a letter to
Principal Dawson, of McGill College, were, briefly and
soberly, as follows :—Two fishermen were out in a small
punt on the 26th of October, 1873, near the eastern end of
Belle Isle, Conception Bay, about nine miles from St. John’s.
Observing some object floating on the water at a short
distance, they rowed towards it, supposing it to be the débris
of a wreck. On reaching it one of them struck it with his
“ oaff,’ when immediately it showed signs of life, and shot
out its two tentacular arms, as if to seize its antagonists.
The other man, named Theophilus Picot, though naturally
alarmed, severed both arms with an axe as they lay on the
cunwale of the boat, whereupon the animal moved off, and
ejected a quantity of inky fluid which darkened the sur-
rounding water for a considerable distance. The men went
home, and, as fishermen will, magnified their lost “fish.”
They “estimated” the body to have been 60 feet in length,
and 10 feet across the tail fin; and declared that when
the ‘‘fish” attacked them “it reared a parrot-like beak
which was as big as a six-gallon keg.”

All this, in the excitement of the moment, Mr. Harvey
appears to have been willing to believe, and related without
the expression of a doubt. Fortunately, he was able to
obtain from the fishermen a portion of one of the tentacular
arms which they had chopped off with the axe, and by so
doing rendered good service to science. This fragment
(Fig. 9), as measured by Mr. Alexander Murray, provincial
geologist of Newfoundland, and Professor Verrill, of Yale

THE KRAKEN. | 43

College, Connecticut, is 17 feet long and 3} feet in circum-
ference. It is nowin St. John’s Museum. By careful calcu-
lation of its girth, the breadth and circumference of the
expanded sucker-bearing portion at its extremity, and the
diameter of the suckers, Professor Verrill has computed its
dimensions to have been as follows :—Length of body Io feet ;
diameter of body 2 feet 5 inches. Long tentacular arms
32 feet ; head 2 feet ; total length about 44 feet. The upper
mandible of the beak, instead of being “as large as a six-
gallon keg” would be about 3 inches long, and the lower
mandible 14 inch long. From the size of the large suckers

FIG. 9.—TENTACLE OF A GREAT CALAMARY (Architeuthis princeps) TAKEN
IN CONCEPTION BAY, NEWFOUNDLAND, OCT. 26, 1873.

relatively to those of another specimen to be presently
described, he regards it as probable that this individual was
a female.

In November, 1873—about three weeks after the occur-
rence in Conception Bay—another calamary somewhat
smaller than the preceding, but of the same species, also
came into Mr. Harvey’s possession. Three fishermen, when
hauling their herring-net in Logie Bay, about three miles
from St. John’s, found the huge animal entangled in its folds.
With great difficulty they succeeded in despatching it and

44 - SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

bringing it ashore, having been compelled to cut off its head
before they could get it into their boat.

The body of this specimen was over 7 feet long; the
caudal fin 22 inches broad; the two long tentacular arms

OS SRS

oS

Pec <4
: fee
A ee a

Moor

FIG. I0O.—HEAD AND TENTACLES OF A GREAT CALAMARY (Architeuthis
princeps) TAKEN IN LOGIE BAY, NEWFOUNDLAND, NOV. 1873.

24 feet in length; the eight shorter arms each 6 feet long,
the largest of the latter being 10 inches in circumference at
the base ; total length of this calamary 32 feet. Professor

THE KRAKEN. 45

Verrill considers that this and the Conception Bay squid
are both referable to one species—Steenstrup’s Archzteu-
this dux.

Excellent woodcuts from photographs of these two speci-
mens were given in the /7ze/d of December 13th, 1873, and
January 31st, 1874, respectively, and I am indebted to the
proprietors of that journal for their kind and courteous per-
mission to copy them in reduced size for the illustration of
this little work.

For the preservation of both of the above described
specimens we have to thank Mr. Harvey, and he produces
additional evidence of other gigantic cuttles having been
previously seen on the coast of Newfoundland. He men-
tions two especially, which, as stated by the Rev. Mr.
Gabriel, were cast ashore in the winter of 1870-71, near
Lamaline on the south coast of the island, which measured
respectively 40 feet and 47 feet in length ; and he also tells
of another stranded two years later, the total length of
which was 80 feet.

In the American Fournal of Science and Arts, of March
1875, Professor Verrill gives particulars and authenticated
testimony of several other examples of great calamaries,
varying in total length from 30 feet to 52 feet, which have
been taken in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland since
the year 1870. One of these was found floating, apparently
dead, near the Grand Banks in October 1871, by Captain
Campbell, of the schooner 5. D. Hoskins, of Gloucester,
Mass. It was taken on board, and part of it used for bait.
The body is stated to have been 15 feet long, and the pedal
or shorter arms between 9 feet and Io feet. The beak was
forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution.

Another instance given by Professor Verrill is of a great
squid found alive in shallow water in Coomb’s Cove,

46 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Fortune Bay, in the year 1872. Its measurements, taken by
the Hon. T. R. Bennett, of English Harbour, Newfoundland,
were, length of body 10 feet; length of tentacle 42 feet;
length of one of the ordinary arms 6 feet: the cups on the
tentacles were serrated. Professor Verrill also mentions a
pair of jaws and two suckers in the Smithsonian Institution,
as having been received from the Rev. A. Munn, with a
statement that they were taken from a calamary which
went ashore in Bonavista Bay, and which measured 32 feet
in total length.

On the 22nd of September, 1877, another gigantic squid
was stranded at Catalina, on the north shore of Trinity
Bay, Newfoundland, during a heavy equinoctial gale. It
was alive when first seen, but died soon after the ebbing of
the tide, and was left high and dry upon the beach. Two
fishermen took possession of it, and the whole settlement
gathered to gaze in astonishment at the monster. Formerly
it would have been converted into manure, or cut up as
food for dogs, but, thanks to the diffusion of intelligence,
there were some persons in Catalina who knew the import-
ance of preserving such a rarity, and who advised the
fishermen to take it to St. John’s. After being exhibited
there for two days, it was packed in half-a-ton of ice in
readiness for transmission to Professor Verrill, in the hope
that it would be placed in the Peabody or Smithsonian
Museum ; but at the last moment its owners violated their
agreement, and sold it to a higher bidder. The final
purchase was made for the New York Aquarium, where it
arrived on the 7th of October, immersed in methylated
spirit in a large glass tank. Its measurements were as fol-
lows :—length of body Io feet; length of tentacles 30 feet ;
length of shorter arm II feet ; circumference of body 7 feet ;
breadth of caudal fin 2 feet 9 inches; diameter of largest

THE KRAKEN. 47

tentacular sucker I inch ; number of suckers on each of
the shorter arms 250.

The appearance of so many of these great squids on
the shores of Newfoundland during the term of seven years,
and after so long a period of popular uncertainty as to
their very existence had previously elapsed, might lead one
to suppose that the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean
which wash the north-eastern coasts of the American Con-
tinent were, at any rate, temporarily, their principal habitat,
especially as a smaller member of their family, Omma-
strephes sagittatus, is there found in such extraordinary
numbers that it furnishes the greater part of the bait used
in the Newfoundland cod fisheries. But that they are by
no means confined to this locality is proved by recent
instances, as well as by those already cited.

Dr. F. Hilgendorf records * observations of a huge squid
exhibited for money at Yedo, Japan, in 1873, and of another
of similar size, which he saw exposed for sale in the Yedo
fish market.

When the French expedition was sent to the Island of
St. Paul, in 1874, for the purpose of observing the transit
of Venus, which occurred on the 9th of December in that
year, it was fortunately accompanied by an able zoologist,
M. Ch. Velain. He reports f that on the 2nd of November
a tidal wave cast upon the north shore of the islanda great
calamary which measured in total length nearly 23 feet,
namely: length of body 7 feet ; length of tentacles 16 feet.
There are several points of interest connected with its
generic characters, and M. Velain’s grounds for regard-
ing it as being of a previously unknown species, but they

* “Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft naturforschenden Freunde zu
Berlin,’ pp. 65-67, quoted by Professor Owen, of. cit.
t ‘ Comptes Rendus,’ t. 80, 1875, p. 998.

48 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

are too technical for discussion here. This specimen was
photographed as it lay upon the beach by M. Cazin, the
photographer to the expedition.

The following account of the still more recent capture of
a large squid off the west coast of Ireland was given in the
Zoologist of June 1875, by Sergeant Thomas O’Connor, of
the Royal Irish Constabulary :—

**On the 26th of April, 1875, a very large calamary was met
with on the north-west of Boffin Island, Connemara. The crew of
a ‘curragh’ (a boat made like the ‘coracle,’ with wooden ribs
covered with tarred canvas) observed to seaward a large floating
mass, surrounded by gulls. They pulled out to it, believing it to
be wreck, but to their astonishment found it was an enormous
cuttle-fish, lying perfectly still, as if basking on the surface of the
water. Paddling up with caution, they lopped off one of its arms,
The animal immediately set out to sea, rushing through the water
at a tremendous pace. The men gave chase, and, after a hard
pull in their frail canvas craft, came up with it, five miles out in
the open Atlantic, and severed another of its arms and the head.
These portions are now in the Dublin Museum. ‘The shorter
arms measure, each, eight feet in length, and fifteen inches round
the base: the tentacular arms are said to have been thirty feet
long. The body sank.”

Finally, there is in our own national collection, preserved
in spirit in a tall glass jar, a single arm of a huge cephalopod,
which, by the kindness and courtesy of the officers of the
department, I was permitted to examine and measure when
I first described it, in May, 1873. It is 9 feet long, and 12
inches in circumference at the base, tapering gradually to a
fine point. It has about 300 suckers, pedunculated, or set
on tubular footstalks, placed alternately in two rows, and
having serrated, horny rings, but no hooks; the diameter
of the largest of these rings is half an inch; the smallest is
not larger than a pin’s head. This is one of the eight

THE KRAKEN. 49

shorter, or pedal, and not one of the long, or tentacular,
arms of the calamary to which it belonged. The relative
length of the arms to that of the body and tentacles
varies in different genera of the Zeuthide@, and it is not
impossible that this may be the case even in individuals
of the same species. But, judging from the proportions
of known examples, I estimate the length of the ten-
tacles at 36 feet, and that of the body at from 10 to
II feet: total length 47 feet. The beak would probably
have been about 5 inches long from hinge socket to point,
and the diameter of the largest suckers of the tentacles
about I inch. So much for De Montfort’s “suckers as big
as saucepan-lids.” From a well defined fold of skin which
spreads out from each margin of that surface of the arm
over which the suckers are situated, Professor Owen has
given to this calamary the generic name of Plectoteuthis,
with the specific title of grandis to indicate its enormous
size. No history relating to this interesting specimen has
been preserved. No one knows its origin, nor when it was
received, but Dr. Gray told me that he believed it came
from the east coast of South America. It has, however,
long formed part of the stores of the British Museum, and,
although previously open to public view, was more recently
for many years kept in the basement chambers of the old
building in Bloomsbury, which were irreverently called by
the initiated “the spirit vaults and bottle department,”
because fishes, mollusca, &c., preserved in spirits were
there deposited. JI hope the public will have greater
facility of access to it in the new Museum.

Here, then, in our midst, and to be seen by all who ask
permission to inspect it, is, and has long been, a limb of a
great cephalopod capable of upsetting a boat, or of hauling

a man out of her, or of clutching one engaged in scraping
E

50 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

a ship’s side, and dragging him under water, as described
by the old master-mariner Magnus Dens. The tough,
supple tentacles, shot forth with lightning rapidity, would
be long enough to reach him ata distance of a dozen yards,
and strong enough to drag him within the grasp of the
eight shorter arms, a helpless victim to the mandibles of a
beak sufficiently powerful to tear him in pieces and crush
some of his smaller bones. For, once within that dreadful
embrace, his escape, unaided, would be impossible. The
clinging power of this Plectoteuthis is so enormously aug-
mented by the additional surface given by the expanded
folds to the under side of the arms, that I doubt if even
one of the smaller whales, such as the “ White Whale,” or
the “Pilot Whale,” could extricate itself from their com-
bined hold, if those eight supple, clammy, adhesive arms,
each 9 feet long, and 5 inches in diameter at the base
on the flat under surface, and armed with a battery of
2400 suckers, were once fairly lapped around it.

Ought it to surprise us, then, that an uneducated sea-
faring population, such as the fishermen of Fridrichstad,
mentioned by Pontoppidan, absolutely ignorant of the
habits and affinities, and even unacquainted with the real
external form of such a creature, should exaggerate its
dimensions and invest it with mystery? All that they
knew of it was that whilst their friends and neighbours,
whom we will call Eric Paulsen, Hans Ohlsen, and Olaf
Bruhn were out fishing one calm day, a shapeless “ some-
thing” rose just above the surface of the tranquil sea not
far from their boat. They could see that there was much
more of its bulk under water, but how far it extended they
could not ascertain. Mistrusting its appearance, and with
foreboding of danger, they were about to get up their
anchor, when, suddenly, from thirty feet away, a rope was

=< —————

THE KRAKEN. | 51

shot on board which fastened itself on Hans; he was
dragged from amongst them towards the strange floating
mass; there was a commotion; from the foaming sea
upreared themselves, as it seemed to Eric and Olaf, several
writhing serpents, which twined themselves around Hans;
and as they gazed, helpless, in horror and bewilderment,
the monster sank, and with a mighty swirl the waters
closed for ever over their unfortunate companion. The
men would naturally hasten home, and describe the dread-
ful incident—their imagination excited by its mysterious
nature; the tale would spread through the district, losing
nothing by repetition, and within a week the fabled Kraken
would be the result.

The existence, in almost every sea, of calamaries capable
of playing their part in such a scene has been fully proved,
and this vexed question of marine zoology set at rest for
ever. The “much greater light on this subject,” which, as

Pontoppidan sagaciously foresaw, was “reserved for pos-

| terity,” has been thrown upon it by the discoveries of the
| last few years; and the “further experience which is
| always the best instructor,” and which he correctly antici-
| pated would be possessed by the “future writers,” to whom

he bequeathed the completion of his “sketch,” has been
obtained. Viewed by their aid, and seen in the clearer
atmosphere of our present knowledge, the great sea-monster
which loomed so indefinitely vast in the mist of ignorance and
superstition, stands revealed in its true form and proportions

_—its magnitude reduced, its outline distinct, and its mystery
| gone—and we recognise in the supposed Kraken, as the
| Norwegian bishop rightly conjectured that we should, an
| animal “of the Polypus (or cuttle) kind, and amongst the
largest inhabitants of the ocean.”

Bh Ba

THE GREAT SES Sear 2

THE belief in the existence of sea-serpents of formidable
dimensions is of great antiquity. Aristotle, writing about —
B.C. 340, says* :—“ The serpents of Libya are of an enor- .

mous size. Navigators along that coast report having seen
a great quantity of bones of oxen, which they believe,
without doubt, to have been devoured by the serpents.
These serpents pursued them when they left the shore, and
upset one of their triremes’—a vessel of a large class,
having three banks of oars.

Pliny tells ust that a squadron sent by Alexander the
Great on a voyage of discovery, under the command of
Onesicritus and Nearchus, encountered, in the neighbour-
hood of some islands in the Persian Gulf, sea-serpents
thirty feet long, which filled the fleet with terror.

Valerius Maximus,{ quoting Livy, describes the alarm
into which, during the Punic wars, the Romans, under
Attilius Regulus (who was afterwards so cruelly put to
death by the Carthaginians), were thrown by an aquatic,
though not marine, serpent which had its lair on the
banks of the Bagrados, near Ithaca. It is said to have —
swallowed many of the soldiers, after crushing them in
its folds, and to have kept the army from crossing the
river, till at length, being invulnerable by ordinary weapons, —
it was destroyed by heavy stones hurled by balistas, —
catapults, and other military engines used in those days
for casting heavy missiles, and battering the walls of ©

* “History of Animals,’ book 8, chap. 28.

t ‘Naturalis Historize,’ Lib. vi., cap. 23.
7 fae Factis, Dictisque Memorabilibus,’ Lib. i., cap. 8, 1st century.

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 53

fortified towns. According to the historian, the annoyance
caused by it to the army did not cease with its death, for
the water was polluted with its gore, and the air with the
noxious fumes from its corrupted carcase, to such a degree
that the Romans were obliged to remove theircamp. They,
however secured the animal’s skin and skull, which were pre-
served in a temple at Rome till the time of the Numantine
war. This combat has been described, to the same effect,
by Florus (lib. ii.), Seneca (litt. 82), Silvius Italicus (I. vi.),
Aulus Gellius (lib. vi., cap, 3), Orosius, Zonaras, &c., and is
referred to by Pliny (lib. viii., cap. 14) as an incident known
to every one. Diodorus Siculus also tells of a great serpent,
sixty feet long, which lived chiefly in the water, but landed
at frequent intervals to devour the cattle in its neighbour-
hood. A party was collected to capture it ; but their first
attempt failed, and the monster killed twenty of them. It
was afterwards taken in a strong net, carried alive to
Alexandria, and presented to King Ptolemy II., the founder
of the Alexandrian Library and Museum, who was a great
collector of zoological and other curiosities. This snake
was probably one of the great boas.

The “ Serpens marinus” is figured and referred to by
many other writers, but as they evidently allude to the
Conger and the Murena, we will pass over their descrip-
tions. |

The sea-serpents mentioned by Aristotle, Pliny, and
Diodorus were, doubtless, real sea-snakes, true marine
ophidians, which are more common in tropical seas than is
generally supposed. They are found most abundantly in
the Indian Ocean ; but they have an extensive geographical
range, and between forty and fifty species of them are
known. They are all highly poisonous, and some are so
ferocious that they more frequently attack than avoid man.

54 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

The greatest length to which they are authentically known
to attain is about twelve feet. The form and structure of
these hydrophides are modified from those of land serpents,
to suit their aquatic habits. The tail is compressed ver-
tically, flattened from the sides, so as to form a fin like the
tail of an eel, by which they propel themselves ; but instead
of tapering to a point, it is rounded off at the end, like the
blade of a paper-knife, or the scabbard of a cavalry sabre.
Like other lung-breathing animals which live in water, they
are also provided with a respiratory apparatus adapted to
their circumstances and requirements—their nostrils, which
are very small, being furnished, like those of the seal,
manatee, &c., with a valve opening at will to admit air, and
closing perfectly to exclude water.

Leaving these water-snakes of the tropics, we come,
next in order of date, upon some very remarkable evidence
that there was current amongst a community where we
should little expect to find it, the idea of a marine monster
corresponding in many respects with some of the descrip-
tions given several centuries later of the sea-serpent. In
an interesting article on the Catacombs of Rome in the
Illustrated London News of February 3rd, 1872, allusion
is made by the author to the collection of sarcophagi or
coffins of the early Christians, removed from the Catacombs,
and preserved in the museum of the Lateran Palace, where
they were arranged by the late Padre Marchi for Pope
Pius IX. There are more than twenty of these, sculptured
with various designs—the Father and the Son, Adam and
Eve and the Serpent, the Sacrifice of .Abraham, Moses
striking the Rock, Daniel and the Lions, and other Scripture
themes. Amongst them also is Jonah and the “whale.”
A. facsimile of this sculpture (Fig. 11) is one of the illustra-
tions of the article referred to. It will be seen that Jonah.

oo

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 55

is being swallowed feet foremost, or possibly being ejected
head first, by an enormous sea monster, having the chest
and fore-legs of a horse, a long arching neck, with a mane
at its base, near the shoulders, a head like nothing in
nature, but having hair upon and beneath the cheeks, the
hinder portion of the body being that of a serpent of
prodigious length, undulating in several vertical curves.
This sculpture appears to have been cut between the
beginning and the middle of the third century, about

a

aN

FIG. II.—JONAH AND THE SEA MONSTER,
From the Catacombs of Rome.

A.D. 230, but it probably represents a tradition of far
greater antiquity.

We will now consider the accounts given by Scandinavian
historians, of the sea-serpent having been seen in northern
waters. Here, I suppose, I ought to indulge in the usual
flippant sneer at Bishop Pontoppidan. I know that in ab-
staining from doing so I am sadly out of the fashion; but I
venture to think that the dead lion has been kicked at too
often already, and undeservedly. Whether there be, or be not,
a huge marine animal, not necessarily an ophidian, answering
to some of the descriptions of the sea-serpent—so called—
Pontoppidan did not invent the stories told of its appear-
ance. Long before he was born the monster had been
described and figured; and for centuries previously the
Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and Fins had believed in its

56 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

existence as implicitly as in the tenets of their religious
creed. Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, in Sweden,
wrote of it in A.D. 1555 as follows :*—

“They who in works of navigation on the coasts of Norway
employ themselves in fishing or merchandize do all agree in this
strange story, that there is a serpent there which is of a vast
magnitude, namely 200 foot long, and moreover, 20 foot thick ;
and is wont to live in rocks and caves toward the sea-coast about
Berge: which will go alone from his holes on a clear night in
summer, and devour calves, lambs, and hogs, or else he goes into
the sea to feed on polypus (octopus), locusts (lobsters), and all
sorts of sea-crabs. He hath commonly hair hanging from his
neck a cubit long, and sharp scales, and is black, and he hath
flaming, shining eyes. This snake disquiets the shippers; and
he puts up his head on high like a pillar, and catcheth away men,
and he devours them; and this happeneth not but it signifies
some wonderful change of the kingdom near at hand; namely,
that the princes shall die, or be banished; or some tumultuous
wars shall presently follow. There is also another serpent of an
incredible magnitude in an island called Moos in the diocess of
Hammer ; which, as a comet portends a change in all the world,
so that portends a change in the kingdom of Norway, as it was
seen anno 1522; that lifts himself high above the waters, and rolls
himself round like a sphere.t This serpent was thought to be
fifty cubits long by conjecture, by sight afar off: there followed
this the banishment of King Christiernus, and a great persecution

of the Bishops; and it shewed also the destruction of the
country.”

The Gothic Archbishop, amongst other signs and omens,
also attributes this power of divination to the small red
ants which are sometimes so troublesome in houses, and
declares that they also portended the downfall, A.D. 1523,

* ‘Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,’ Lib. xxi. cap. 43.

t “Coils itself in spherical convolutions” is a better translation of
the original Latin.

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 57

of the abominably cruel Danish king, Christian II., above
mentioned. His curious work is full of wild improbabili-
ties and odd superstitions, most of which he states with a
calm air of unquestioning assent; but as he wrote in the
time of our Henry VIIL, long before the belief in witches
and warlocks, fairies and banshees, had died out in our own
country, we can hardly throw stones at him on that score.
It is a most amusing and interesting history, and gives a
wonderful insight of the habits and customs of the northern
nations in his day.

Amongst his illustrations of the sea monsters he describes
are the two of which I give facsimiles on the next page. In
Fig. 12 a sea-serpent is seen writhing in many coils upon
the surface of the water, and having in its mouth a sailor,
whom it has seized from the deck of a ship. The poor fellow
is trying to grasp the ratlins of the shrouds, but is being
dragged from his hold and lifted over the bulwarks by the
monster. His companions, in terror, are endeavouring to
escape in various directions. One is climbing aloft by the
stay, in the hope of getting out of reach in that way,
whilst two others are hurrying aft to obtain the shelter of
a little castle or cabin projecting over the stern. I am
strongly of the opinion that this is but the fallacious repre-
sentation of an actual occurrence. Read by the light of
recent knowledge, these old pictures convey to a practised
eye a meaning as clear as that of hieroglyphics to an
Egyptologist, and my translation of this is the following :
The crew of a ship have witnessed the dreadful sight of a
serpent-like form issuing from the sea, rising over the
bulwarks of their vessel, seizing one of their messmates
from amongst them, and dragging him overboard and
under water. Awe-stricken by the mysterious disappear-
ance of their comrade, and too frightened and anxious for

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

‘yy Tenia
Se] p
~
ties

WR he
22 r aC

CO Th
ao ~

FIG. I12.—A SEA SERPENT SEIZING A MAN ON BOARD SHIP,

After OLAUS MAGNUS.

FIG, I13.—A GIGANTIC LOBSTER DRAGGING A MAN FROM A SHIP.

After OLAUS MAGNUS,

. THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 59

their own safety to be able, during the short space of time
occupied by an affair, which all happened in a few seconds,
to observe accurately their terrible assailant, they naturally
conjecture that it must have been a snake. It was pro-
bably a gigantic calamary, such as we now know exist,
and the dead carcases of which have been found in the
locality where the event depicted is supposed to have taken
place. The presumed body of the serpent was one of the arms
of the squid, and the two rows of suckers thereto belonging
are indicated in the illustration by the medial line traversing
its whole length (intended to represent a dorsal fin) and
the double row of transverse septa, one on each side of it.
In Fig. 13 an enormous lobster is in the act of similarly
dragging overboard from a vessel a man whom it has seized
by the arm with one of its great claws. From the crude
image of a lobster having eight minor claws and two larger
ones, to that of a cuttle having eight minor arms and two
longer ones, the transition is not great; and I believe that
this also is a pictorial misrepresentation of a casualty
by the attack of a calamary similar to that above de-
scribed, possibly another view of the same incident. The
idea is that of a sea animal capable of suddenly seizing and
grasping a man, and we must remember that we have
evidence, in the writings of Pontoppidan and others, that,
even two centuries later than Olaus Magnus, the Norse-
men’s knowledge of the cuttles was exceedingly vague and
indistinct. Any one who has seen, as I frequently have at
the Brighton Aquarium, and as they doubtless had whilst
lobster-catching, the threatening and ferocious manner in
which a lobster will brandish, and, if I may use the term,
“onash” its claws at an intruding hand, even if held above
the surface of the water, can well imagine a party of fisher-
men discussing such a tragic occurrence as the foregoing,

60 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

and differing in opinion as to the identity of the creature
which had caused the catastrophe, some maintaining that it
must have been a sea-serpent, and others shaking their
heads and asserting that nothing but a colossal lobster
could have done it.

Pontoppidan, in writing his history of Norway, of course
had before him the statements of Olaus Magnus ; but, though
their author was an archbishop, he did not accept them
with the childlike simplicity generally ascribed to him.
Quoting, and, singularly enough, misquoting, the Swedish
prelate as referring to a sea-serpent, when he is describing,
incorrectly, one of the Acalephe, or sea-nettles, Pontoppidan
says :—

“‘T have never heard of this sort, and should hardly believe
the good Olaus if he did not say that he affirmed this from his
own experience. The disproportion makes me think there must
be some error ofthe press . . . He mixes truth and fable together
according to the relations of others; but this was excusable in
that dark age when that author wrote. Notwithstanding all this,
we, in the present more enlightened age, are much obliged to him
for his industry and judicious observations.”

Of the sea-serpent Pontoppidan writes :—

“‘ IT have questioned its existence myself, till that suspicion was
removed by full and sufficient evidence from creditable and expe-
rienced fishermen and sailors in Norway, of which there are hun-
dreds who can testify that they have annually seen them. All
these persons agree very well in the general description ; and
others who acknowledge that they only know it by report or by
what their neighbours have told them, still relate the same parti-
culars. In all my inquiry about these affairs I have hardly spoke
with any intelligent person born in the manor of Nordland who
was not able to give a pertinent answer, and strong assurances of
the existence of this fish ; and some of our north traders that
come here every year with their merchandize think it a very strange

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 61

question when they are seriously asked whether there be any such
creature: they think it as ridiculous as if the question was put to
them whether there be such fish as eel or cod.”

The worthy Bishop of Bergen did his best to sift truth
from fable, but he could not always succeed in separating
them. Many stupendous falsehoods were brought to him,
and some of them passed through his sieve in spite of his
care. Of these are the accounts of the “spawning times ”
of the sea-serpent, its dislike of certain scents, &c. We
must pass over all this, and confine ourselves to the
evidence offered by him of its having been seen.

The first witness he adduces is Captain Lawrence de
Ferry, of the Norwegian navy, and first pilot in Bergen,
who, premising that he had doubted a great while whether
there were any such creature till he had ocular demonstra-
tion of it, made the following statement, addressed formally
and officially to the procurator of Bergen :—

“Mr. Joun REvuTZ—

‘“‘The latter end of August, in the year 1746, as I was on a
voyage, on my return from Trundhiem, on a very calm and hot
day, having a mind to put in at Molde, it happened that when
we were arrived with my vessel within six English miles of
the aforesaid Molde, being at a place called Jule-Ness, as
I was reading in a book, I heard a kind of a murmuring
voice from amongst the men at the oars, who were eight in
number, and observed that the man at the helm kept off from
the land. Upon this I inquired what was the matter, and was
informed that there was a sea-snake before us. I then ordered
the man at the helm to keep to the land again, and to come up
with this creature of which I had heard so many stories. Though
the fellows were under some apprehension, they were obliged to
obey my orders. In the meantime the sea-snake passed by us,
and we were obliged to tack the vessel about in order to get nearer
to it. As the snake swam faster than we could row, I took my

62 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

gun, that was ready charged, and fired at it; on this he imme-
diately plunged under the water. We rowed to the place where
it sunk down (which in the calm might be easily observed) and
lay upon our oars, thinking it would come up again to the surface ;
however it did not. Where the snake plunged down, the water
appeared thick and red ; perhaps some of the shot might wound it,
the distance being very little. The head of this snake, which it held
more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that
of ahorse. It was of a greyish colour, and the mouth was quite
black, and very large. It had black eyes, and a long white mane,
that hung down from the neck to the surface of the water.
Besides the head and neck, we saw seven or eight folds, or coils,
of this snake, which were very thick, and as far as we could guess
there was about a fathom distance between each fold. I related
this affair in a certain company, where there was 2 person of dis-
tinction present who desired that I would communicate to him an
authentic detail of all that happened; and for this reason two of
my sailors, who were present at the same time and place where I
saw this monster,namely, Nicholas Pedersen Kopper, and Nicholas
Nicholsen Anglewigen, shall appear in court, to declare on oath
the truth of every particular herein set forth; and I desire the
favour of an attested copy of the said descriptions.

“‘T remain, Sir, your obliged servant,

“'L. DE KERRY,
‘* Bergen, 21st February, 1751.

“ After this the before-named witnesses gave their corporal
oaths, and, with their finger held up according to law, witnessed
and confirmed the aforesaid letter or declaration, and every par-
ticular set forth therein to be strictly true. A copy of the said
attestation was made out for the said Procurator Reutz, and
granted by the Recorder. ‘That this was transacted in our court
of justice we confirm with our hand and seals. <Actum Bergis die

et loco, ut supra.
“A.C. Dass (Chief Advocate).

“H.C. GARTNER (fecorder).”

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 63

The figure of the sea-serpent (Fig. 14) given by Pontop-

pidan was drawn, he tells us, under the inspection of a

clergyman, Mr. Hans Strom, from
descriptions given of it by two of
his neighbours, Messrs. Reutz and
Teuchsen, of Herroe; and was de-
clared to agree in every particular
with that seen by Captain de Ferry,
and another subsequently observed
by Governor Benstrup. The sup-
posed coils of the serpent’s body
present exactly the appearance of
eight porpoises following each other
in line. This is a well-known habit
of some of the smaller cetacea.
They are often met with at sea
thus proceeding in close single file,
part only of their rotund forms
being visible as they raise their
backs above the surface of the
water to inhale air through their
“blow-holes.” Under these circum-
stances they have been described
by naturalists and seamen as re-
sembling a long string of casks or
buoys, often extending for sixty,
eighty, or a hundred yards. This
is just such a spectacle as that
described by Olaus Magnus—his
“long line of spherical convolu-
tions,” and also as one reported

ri
ay), () i uN) ™
‘af ; iN h

iH anil f

HR hot

i) Wt
i ve
rile

!
iN

FIG. 14.—PONTOPPIDAN’S
**SEA SERPENT.”

to Pontoppidan as being descriptive of the sea-serpent :—

“*T have been informed,’ he says, ‘by some of our sea-faring

64 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

men that a cable* would not be long enough to measure the
length of some of them when they are observed on the surface of
the water in an even line. They say those round lumps or folds
sometimes lie one after another as far as a man can see. I
confess, if this be true, that we must suppose most probably that
it is not one snake, but two or more of these creatures lying in
a line that exhibit this phenomenon.’ In a foot-note he adds:
‘ If any one enquires how many folds may be counted on a sea-
snake, the answer is that the number is not always the same, but
depends upon the various sizes of them: five and twenty is the
greatest number that I find well attested.” Adam Olearius, in his
Gottorf Museum, writes of it thus: ‘A person of distinction from
Sweden related here at Gottorf that he had heard the burgomaster
of Malmoe, a very worthy man, say that as he was once standing
on the top of a very high hill, towards the North Sea, he saw in
the water, which was very calm, a snake, which appeared at that
distance to be as thick asa pipe of wine, and had twenty-five
folds. ‘Those kind of snakes only appear at certain times, and

999

in calm weather.

I believe that in every case so far cited from Pontoppidan,
as well as that given by Olaus Magnus, the supposed coils
or protuberances of the serpent’s body were only so many
porpoises swimming in line in accordance with their habit
before mentioned. If an upraised head, like that of a horse,
was seen preceding them, it was either unconnected with
them, or it certainly was not that of a snake; for no ser-
pent could throw its body into those vertical undulations.
The form of the vertebre in the ophidians renders such a
movement impossible. All their flexions are horizontal ;
the curving of their body is from side to side, not up and
down.

The sea-monster seen by Egede was of an entirely dif-
ferent kind; and his account of it—let sceptics deride it

* Six hundred feet.

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT: 65

as they may—is worthy of attention and careful considera-
tion. The Rev. Hans Egede, known as “ The Apostle of
Greenland,” was superintendent of the Christian missions to
that country. He was a truthful, pious, and single-minded
man, possessing considerable powers of observation, and a
genuine love of natural history. He wrote two books on
the products, people, and natural history of Greenland,*
and his statements therein are modest, accurate, and free
from exaggeration. His illustrations are little, if at all,
superior in style of art to the two Japanese wood-cuts
shown on page 29, but they bear the same unmistakable
signs of fidelity which characterise those of the Japanese.

In his ‘Journal of the Missions to Greenland’ this author
tell us that—

“On the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and
frightful sea monster, which raised itself so high out of the water
that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long, sharp
snout, and spouted water like a whale; and very broad flappers.
The body seemed to be covered with scales, and the skin was
uneven and wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake.
After some time the creature plunged backwards into the water,
and then turned its tail up above the surface, a whole ship-length
from the head. The following evening we had very bad weather.”

The high character of the narrator would lead us to
accept his statement that he had seen something previously
unknown to him (he does not say it was a _ sea-serpent)
even if we could not explain or understand what it was
that he saw. Fortunately, however, the sketch made by
Mr. Bing, one of his brother missionaries, has enabled us to
do this. We must remember that in his endeavour to

* ‘Des alten Grénlands neue perlustration,’ 8vo., Frankfurt, 1730,
and ‘ Det Gamle Gronlands nye perlustratione eller Naturel Historie.’
4to., Copenhagen, I74I.

F

66

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

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FIG, I5.—THE ANIMAL DRAWN BY MR. BING AS HAVING BEEN SEEN BY HANS EGEDE.

Aa EE :

| ae.

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT, 67

portray the incident he was dealing with an animal with
the nature of which he was unacquainted, and which was
only partially, and for a very short time, within his view.
He therefore delineated rather the impression left on his
mind than the thing itself. But although he invested it
with a character that did not belong to it, his drawing is so
far correct that we are able to recognise at a glance the

distorted portrait of an old acquaintance, and to say unhesi-

FIG. 16.—THE ANIMAL WHICH EGEDE PROBABLY SAW.

tatingly that Egede’s sea-monster was one of the great
calamaries which have since been occasionally met with,
but which have only been believed in and recognised within
the last few years. That which Mr. Egede believed to be
the creature’s head was the tail part of the cuttle, which
goes in advance as the animal swims, and the two side
appendages represent very efficiently the two lobes of the
caudal fin. In propelling itself to the surface the squid
F 2

68 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

raised this portion of its body out of the water to a consider-
able height, an occurrence which I have often witnessed, and
which I have elsewhere described (see pp. 23 and 27). The
supposed tail, which was turned up at some distance from
the other visible portion of the body, after the latter had sunk
back intothe sea, was one of the shorter arms of the cuttle, and
the suckers on its under side are clearly and conspicuously
marked. Egede was, of course, in error in making the
“spout” of water to issue from the mouth of his monster.
The out-pouring jet, which he, no doubt, saw, came from
the locomotor tube, and the puff of spray which would
accompany it as the orifice of the tube rose to the surface
of the water is sketched with remarkable truthfulness. In
quoting Egede, Pontoppidan gives a copy (so-called) of this
engraving, but his artist embellished it so much as to
deprive it of its original force and character, and of the
honestly drawn points which furnish proofs of its identity.

Pontoppidan records other supposed appearances of the
sea-serpent, but from the date of his history I know of no
other account of such an occurrence until that of an animal
“apparently belonging to this class,” which was stranded
on the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, in the year
1808 :—

ze According to the narrative, it was first seen entire, and
measured by respectable individuals. It measured fifty-six feet
in length, and twelve in circumference. The head was small, not
being a foot long from the snout to the first vertebra; the neck
was slender, extending to the length of fifteen feet. All the wit-
nesses agree in assigning it blow-holes, though they differ as to the
precise situation. On the shoulders something like a bristly mane
commenced which extended to near the extremity of the tail. It
had three pairs of fins or paws connected with the body; the
anterior were the largest, measuring more than four feet in length,
and their extremities were something like toes partially webbed.

THE GREAT SEA: SERPENT. 69

The skin was smooth and of a greyish colour; the eye was of
the size of a seal’s. When the decaying carcass was broken up
by the waves, portions of it were secured (such as the skull, the
upper bones of the swimming paws, &c.) by Mr. Laing, a neigh-
bouring proprietor, and some of the vertebrze were preserved and
deposited in the Royal University Museum, Edinburgh, and in
the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. An
able paper,” says Dr. Robert Hamilton, in his account of it,* ‘‘ on
these latter fragments and on the wreck of the animal was read
by the late Dr. Barclay to the Wernerian Society, and will be
found in Vol. I. of its Transactions, to which we refer. We have
supplied a wood-cut of the sketch” (of which I give a facsimile
here) “which was taken at the time, and which, from the many

LZ ie 1
é "7 - - i, 5 rs Soe,
mM Z /

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FIG. I17.—THE ‘‘SEA SERPENT” OF THE WERNERIAN SOCIETY. (Facsimile.)

affidavits proffered by respectable individuals, as well as from
other circumstances narrated, leaves no manner of doubt as to the
existence of some such animal.”

Well! one would think so. It looks convincing, and
there is a savour of philosophy about it that might lull
the suspicions of a doubting zoologist. What more could
be required? We have accurate measurements and a
sketch taken of the animal as it lay upon the shore, minute
particulars of its outward form, characteristic portions of
its skeleton preserved in well-known museums, and any
amount of affidavits forthcoming from most respectable
individuals if confirmation be required. And yet,

“ "Tis tiie, tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true,”

the whole fabric of circumstances crumbled at the touch

* Jardine’s Naturalists’ Library: ‘ Marine Amphibia,’ p. 314.

70 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

of science. When the two vertebre in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons were examined by Sir Everard
Home he pronounced them to be those of a great shark of
the genus Selache, and as being undistinguishable from
those of the species called the “basking shark,’’ of which
individuals from thirty to thirty-five feet in length have been
from time to time captured or stranded on our coasts. Pro-
fessor Owen has confirmed this. Any one who feels in-
clined to dispute the identification by this distinguished
comparative anatomist of a bone which he has seen and
handled can examine these vertebre for himself. If they
had not been preserved, this incident would have been cited
for all time as among the most satisfactorily authenticated
instances on record of the appearance of the sea-serpent.
As it is, it furnishes a valuable warning of the necessity for
the most careful scrutiny of the evidence of well-meaning
persons to whom no intentional deception or exaggeration
can be imputed.

In 1809, Mr. Maclean, the minister of Eigg, in the Western
Isles of Scotland, informed Dr. Neill, the secretary of the
Wernerian Society, that he had seen, off the Isle of Canna,
a great animal which chased his boat as he hurried ashore
to escape from it; and that it was also seen by the crews
of thirteen fishing-boats, who were so terrified by it that
they fled from it to the nearest creek for safety. His de-
scription of it is exceedingly vague, but is strongly indi-
cative of a great calamary.

In 1817 a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent,
was seen at Gloucester Harbour, near Cape Ann, Massa-
chusetts, about thirty miles from Boston. The Linnzan
Society of New England investigated the matter, and took
much trouble to obtain evidence thereon. The depositions
of eleven credible witnesses were certified on oath before

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 71

magistrates, one of whom had himself seen the creature,
and who confirmed the statements. All agreed that the
animal had the appearance of a serpent, but estimated its
length, variously, at from fifty to a hundred feet. Its head
was in shape like that of a turtle, or snake, but as large
as the head of a horse. There was no appearance of a
mane. Its mode of progressing was by vertical undulations ;
and five of the witnesses described it as having the hunched
protuberances mentioned by Captain de Ferry and others.
Of this, I can offer no zoological explanation. The testi-
mony given was apparently sincere, but it was received
with mistrust ; for, as Mr. Gosse says, “owing to a habit
prevalent in the United States of supposing that there is
somewhat of wit in gross exaggeration or hoaxing in-
vention, we do naturally look with a lurking suspicion
on American statements when they describe unusual or
disputed phenomena.”

On the 15th of May, 1833, a party of British officers,
consisting of Captain Sullivan, Lieutenants Maclachlan and
Malcolm of the Rifle Brigade, Lieutenant Lister of the
Artillery, and Mr. Ince of the Ordnance, whilst crossing
Margaret’s Bay in a small yacht, on their way from Halifax
to Mahone Bay, “saw, at a distance of a hundred and fifty
to two hundred yards, the head and neck of some denizen
of the deep, precisely like those of a common snake in the
act of swimming, the head so far elevated and thrown
forward by the curve of the neck, as to enable them to see
the water under and beyondit. The creature rapidly
passed, leaving a regular wake, from the commencement of
which to the fore part, which was out of water, they judged
its length to be about eighty feet.” They “set down the
head at about six feet in length (considerably larger than
that of a horse), and that portion of the neck which they

72 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

saw at the same.” “There could be no mistake—no delu-—
sion,” they say; “and we were all perfectly satisfied that we
had been favoured with a view of the true and veritable
sea-serpent.” This account was published in the Zoologzst,
in 1847 (p. 1715), and at that date all the officers above
named were still living.

The next incident of the kind in point of date that we
find recorded carries us back to the locality of which
Pontoppidan wrote, and in which was seen the animal
vouched for by Captain de Ferry. In 1847 there appeared
in a London daily paper a long account translated from
the Norse journals of fresh appearances of the sea-serpent.
The statement made was, that it had recently been
frequently seen in the neighbourhood of Christiansand
and Molde. In the large bight of the sea at Christiansand
it had been seen every year, only in the warmest weather,
and when the sea was perfectly calm, and the surface of
the water unruffled. The evidence of three respectable
persons was taken, namely, Nils Roe, a workman at Mr.
William Knudtzon’s, who saw it twice there, John Johnson,
merchant, and Lars John6en, fisherman at Smolen. The
latter said he had frequently seen it, and that one afternoon
in the dog-days, as he was sitting in his boat, he saw it
twice in the course of two hours, and quite close to him.
It came, indeed, to within six feet of him, and, becoming
alarmed, he commended his soul to God, and lay down in
the boat, only holding his head high enough to enable him
to observe the monster. It passed him, disappeared, and
returned ; but, a breeze springing up, it sank, and he saw
itno more. He described it as being about six fathoms
long, the body (which was as round as a serpent’s) two feet
across, the head as long as a ten-gallon cask, the eyes
large, round, red, sparkling, and about five inches in

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 73

diameter: close behind the head a mane like a fin com-
menced along the neck, and spread itself out on both sides,
right and left, when swimming. The mane, as well as the
head, was of the colour of mahogany. The body was
quite smooth, its movements occasionally fast and slow.
It was serpent-like, and moved up and down. The few
undulations which those parts of the body and tail that
were out of water made, were scarcely a fathom in length.
These undulations were not so high that he could see
between them and the water.

In confirmation of this account Mr. Soren Knudtzon,
Dr. Hoffmann, surgeon in Molde, Rector Hammer, Mr.
Kraft, curate, and several other persons, testified that they
had seen in the neighbourhood of Christiansand a sea-
serpent of considerable size.

Mr. William Knudtzon, and Mr. Bochlum, a candidate
for holy orders, also gave their account of it, much to the
same purport; but some of these remarks are worthy of
note for future comment. They say, “its motions were in
undulations, and so strong that white foam appeared before
it, and at the side, which stretched out several fathoms.
It did not appear very high out of the water; the head
was long and small in proportion to the throat: as the
latter appeared much greater than the former, probably it
was furnished with a mane.”

siictiitc Gottsche ftestified-to a similar effect. “He
could not judge of the animal’s entire length ; he could
not observe its extremity. At the back of the head there
was a mane, which was the same colour as the rest of the
body.”

We must take one more Norwegian account, for it is
a very important one. The venerable P. W. Deinbolt,*

* Hitherto erroneously printed “ Deinboll.”

74 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Archdeacon of Molde, gives the following account of an
incident that cccurred there on the 28th of July, 1845 :

‘J. C. Lund, bookseller and printer; G. S. Krogh, merchant ;
Christian Flang, Lund’s apprentice, and John Elgenses, labourer,
were out on Romsdal-fjord, fishing. The sea was, after a warm,
sunshiny day, quite calm. About seven o’clock in the afternoon,
at a little distance from the shore, near the ballast place and
Molde Hooe, they saw a long marine animal, which slowly moved
itself forward, as it appeared to them, with the help of two fins,
on the fore-part of the body nearest the head, which they judged
by the boiling of the water on both sides of it. The visible part
of the body appeared to be between forty and fifty feet in length,
and moved in undulations, like a snake. The body was round
and of a dark colour, and seemed to be several ells in thickness.
As they discerned a waving motion in the water behind the animal,
they concluded that part of the body was concealed under water.
That it was one continuous animal they saw plainly from its move-
ment. When the animal was about one hundred yards from the
boat, they noticed tolerably correctly its fore parts, which ended
in a sharp snout; its colossal head raised itself above the water
in the form of a semi-circle ; the lower part was not visible. The
colour of the head was dark-brown and the skin smooth; they
did not notice the eyes, or any mane or bristles on the throat.
When the serpent came about a musket-shot near, Lund fired
at it, and was certain the shots hit it in the head. After the
shot it dived, but came up immediately. It raised its neck in the
air, like a snake preparing to dart on his prey. After he had
turned and got his body in a straight line, which he appeared to
do with great difficulty, he darted like an arrow against the boat.
They reached the shore, and the animal, perceiving it had come
into shallow water, dived immediately and disappeared in the
deep. Such is the declaration of these four men, and no one has
cause to question their veracity, or imagine that they were so
seized with fear that they could not observe what took place so
near them. ‘There are not many here, or on other parts of the
Norwegian coast, who longer doubt the existence of the sea-
serpent. The writer of this narrative was a long time sceptical,

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 75

as he had not been so fortunate as to see this monster of the
deep ; but after the many accounts he has read, and the relations
he has received from credible witnesses, he does not dare longer
to doubt the existence of the sea-serpent.

“ P, W. DEINBOLT.
‘* Molde, 29th Nov., 1845.”

We may at once accept most fully and frankly the
statements of all the worthy people mentioned in this
series of incidents. There is no room for the shadow of a
doubt that they all recounted conscientiously that which
they saw. The last quoted occurrence, especially, is most
accurately and intelligently described—so clearly, indeed,
that it furnishes us with a clue to the identity of the
strange visitant.

Here let me say—and I wish it to be distinctly under-
stood—that I do not deny the possibility of the existence
of a great sea serpent, or other great creatures at present
unknown to science, and that I have no inclination to
explain away that which others have seen, because I
myself have not witnessed it. “Seeing is believing,” it is
said, and it is not agreeable to have to tell a person that, in
common parlance, he “must not trust his own eyes.” It
seems presumptuous even to hint that one may know
better what was seen than the person who saw it. And
yet I am obliged to say, reluctantly and courteously, but
mest firmly and assuredly, that these perfectly credible
eye-witnesses did not correctly interpret that which they
witnessed. In these cases, it is not the eye which deceives,
nor the tongue which is untruthful, but the imagination
which is led astray by the association of the thing seen with
an erroneous idea. I venture to say this, not with any
insolent assumption of superior acumen, but because we
now possess a key to the mystery which Archdeacon

76 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Deinbolt and his neighbours had not access to, and which
has only within the last few years been placed in our
hands. The movements and aspect of their sea monster
are those of an animal with which we are now well
acquainted, but of the existence of which the narrators
of these occasional visitations were unaware ; namely, the
great calamary, the same which gave rise to the stories of
the Kraken, and which has probably been a denizen of the
Scandinavian seas and fjords from time immemorial. It
must be remembered, as I have elsewhere said, that until
the year 1873, notwithstanding the adventure of the
Alecton in 1861, a cuttle measuring in total length fifty
or sixty feet was generally looked upon as equally
mythical with the great sea-serpent. Both were popularly
scoffed at, and to express belief in either was to incur
ridicule. But in the year above mentioned, specimens of
even greater dimensions than those quoted were met with
on the coasts of Newfoundland, and portions of them were
deposited in museums, to silence the incredulous and
interest zoologists. When Archdeacon Deinbolt published
in 1846 the declaration of Mr. Lund and his companions
of the fishing excursion, he and they knew nothing of there
being such an animal. They had formed no conception of
it, nor had they the instructive privilege, possessed of late
years by the public in England, of being able to watch
attentively, and at leisure, the habits and movements of
these strangely modified mollusks living in great tanks of
sea-water in aquaria. If they had been thus acquainted
with them, I believe they would have recognised in their
supposed snake the elongated body of a giant squid.

When swimming, these squids propel themselves back-
wards by the out-rush of a stream of water from a tube
pointed in a direction contrary to that in which the animal

WHE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 77

is proceeding. The tail part, therefore, goes in advance,
and the body tapers towards this, al-
most. toa. blunt points » Ata’ short

distance from the actual extremity two

pene sae Des

flat fins project from the body, one

Pinan a

on each side, as shown in Figs. 16
and 18, so that this end of the squid’s
body somewhat resembles in shape

fee me es
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the government “broad arrow.” It

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aan Y/ ‘ ke
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a
is a habit of these squids, the small j
species of which are met with in some | B
localities in teeming abundance, to swim i 4 ; S
on the smooth surface of the water in \) / :
hot .and calm weather. The. arrow- 4 s
headed tail is then raised out of water, 3] -
to a height which in a large individual SZ / «
might be three feet or more; and, as it NS J :
precedes the rest of the body, moving | 'S 2
at the rate of several miles an hour, it | 2
of course looks, to a person who has =| os
never heard of an animal going tail first : z
at such a speed, like the creature’s head. | S 3
The appearance of this “head” varies | ‘i }
in accordance with the lateral fins being Sa *
seen in profile or in broad expanse. The N :

elongated, tubular-looking body gives the
idea of the neck to which the “head”
is attached; the eight arms trailing be-
hind (the tentacles are always coiled
away and concealed) supply the sup-
posed mane floating on each side; the

undulating motion in swimming, as the

water is alternately drawn in and expelled, accords with

78 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

the description, and the excurrent stream pouring aft
from the locomotor tube, causes a long swirl and swell to
be left in the animal’s wake, which, as I have often seen,
may easily be mistaken for an indefinite prolongation of
its body. The eyes are very large and prominent, and
the general tone of colour varies through every tint of
brown, purple, pink, and grey, as the creature is more or
less excited, and the pigmentary matter circulates with
more or less vigour through the curiously moving cells.

Here we have the “long marine animal” with “two fins
on the forepart of the body near the head,” the “boiling of
the water,” the “ moving in undulations,” the “body round,
and of a dark colour,’ the “waving motion in the water
behind the animal, from which the witnesses concluded
that part of the body was concealed under water,” the
“head raised, but the lower part not visible,’ “the sharp
snout,” the “smooth skin,” and the appearance described
by Mr. William Knudtzon, and Candidatus Theologize
Bochlum, of “the head being long and small in proportion
to the throat, the latter appearing much greater than the
former,” which caused them to think “it was probably fur-
nished with a mane.” Not that they saw any mane, but
as they had been told of it, they thought they ought to have
seen it. Less careful and conscientious persons would have
persuaded themselves, and declared on oath, that they
did see it.

I need scarcely point out how utterly irreconcileable is
the proverbially smooth, gliding motion of a serpent, with
the supposition of its passage through the water causing
such frictional disturbance that “white foam appeared
before it, and at the side, which stretched out several
fathoms,” and of “the water boiling around it on both sides
of it.” The cuttle is the only animal that I know of that

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 79

would cause this by the effluent current from its “syphon
tube.” I have seen a deeply laden ship push in front of
her a vast hillock of water, which fell off on each side in
foam as it was parted by her bow; but that was of man’s
construction. Nature builds on better lines. No swimming
creature has such unnecessary friction to overcome. Even
the seemingly unwieldy body of a porpoise enters and
passes through the water without a splash, and nothing can
be more easy and graceful than the feathering action of the
flippers of the awkward-looking turtle.

We now come to an incident which, from the character
of those who witnessed it, immediately commanded atten-
tion, and excited popular curiosity. In the TZzimes of
the 9th of October, 1848, appeared a paragraph stating
that a sea-serpent had been met with by the Dedalus
frigate, on her homeward voyage from the East Indies.
The Admiralty immediately inquired of her commander,
Captain M‘Quhe, as to the truth of the report; and
his official reply, as follows, addressed to Admiral Sir
W. H. Gage, ‘'G.C.H., Devonport, was printed in the Zzmes
of the 13th of October, 1848.

** H.M.S. Dedalus, Hamoaze,
** October 11th, 1848.

“¢ Srr,—In reply to your letter of this date, requiring information
as to the truth of the statement published in the Zimes newspaper,
of a sea-serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen
from H.M.S. Dedalus, under my command, on her passage from
the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the infor-
mation of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at 5
o'clock p.m. on the 6th of Aug. last, in lat. 24° 44’ S. and long.
9° 22'E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the N.W.
with a long ocean swell from the W., the ship on the port tack,
head being N.E. by N., something very unusual was seen by Mr.
Sartoris, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before

80 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

the beam. ‘The circumstance was immediately reported by him
to the officer of the watch, Lieut. Edgar Drummond, with whom
and Mr. Wm. Barrett, the Master, I was at the time walking the
quarter-deck. The ship’s company were at supper. On our
attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an
enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet
constantly above the surface of the sea, and, as nearly as we could
approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main-
topsail yard would show in the water, there was at the very least
sixty feet of the animal @ fleur d’cau, no portion of which was, to
our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by
vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close
under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance
I should easily have recognised his features with the naked eye;
and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had
passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course
to the S.W., which it held on at the pace of from twelve to
fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.

‘““The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen
inches behind the head, which was without any doubt that of a
snake ; and it was never, during the twenty minutes it continued
in sight of our glasses, once below the surface of the water ; its
colour dark brown, and yellowish white about the throat. It had
no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch
of seaweed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quarter-
master, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in
addition to myself and the officers above mentioned.

‘‘T am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch
taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready
for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by
to-morrow’s post— PETER M‘QuH«#, Captain.”

The sketches referred to in the captain’s letter were
made under his supervision, and copies of them, of which
he certified his approbation, were published in the ///ustrated
London News on the 28th of October, 1848. I am kindly
permitted by the proprietors of that journal to reproduce, .

(sonivaya, ‘SW'H JO UTLYVNO AHL AUAANNA ONISSVd qLNUdaas Vas,, AHL—'61 ‘OI

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 8I

A,
all |

82 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

two of them, reduced in size to suit these pages—one
showing the relative positions of the “serpent” and the
ship when the former was first seen (Frontispiece), and the
other (Fig. 19) representing the animal afterwards passing
under the frigate’s quarter. An enlarged drawing of its
head was also given, which I have not thought it neces-
sary to copy.

Lieutenant Drummond, the officer of the watch men-
tioned in Captain M‘Quhe’s report, published his memo-
randum of the impression made on his mind by the
animal at the time of its appearance. It differs somewhat
from the captain’s description, and is the more cautious of
the two.

“T beg to send you the following extract from my journal.
H.M.S. ‘ Deedalus,’ August 6, 1848, lat. 25° S., long. 9° 37’ E., St.
Helena 1,015 miles. In the 4 to 6 watch, at about 5 o'clock,
we observed a most remarkable fish on our lee-quarter, crossing
the stern in a S.W. direction. The appearance of its head, which
with the back fin was the only portion of the animal visible, was
long, pointed and flattened at the top, perhaps ten feet in length,
the upper jaw projecting considerably ; the fin was perhaps 20 feet
in the rear of the head, and visible occasionally ; the captain also
asserted that he saw the tail, or another fin, about the same dis-
tance behind it ; the upper part of the head and shoulders appeared
of a dark brown colour, and beneath the under-jaw a brownish-
white. It pursued a steady undeviating course, keeping its head
horizontal with the surface of the water, and in rather a raised
position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief
interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration. It was
going at the rate of perhaps from twelve to fourteen miles an hour,
and when nearest was perhaps one hundred yards distant; in fact
it gave one quite the idea of a large snake or eel. No one in the
ship has ever seen anything similar ; so it is at least extraordinary.
It was visible to the naked eye for five minutes, and with a glass
for perhaps fifteen more. The weather was dark and squally at

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 83

the time, with some sea running.—Epcar Drummonp, Lieut,
H.M.S, ‘ Deedalus ;’ Southampton, Oct. 28, 1848.”

Statements so interesting and important, of course,
elicited much correspondence and controversy. Mr. J. D.
Morries Stirling, a director of the Bergen Museum, wrote
to the Secretary of the British Admiralty, Captain
Hamilton, R.N., saying that while becalmed in a yacht
between Bergen and Sogne, in Norway, he had seen, three
years previously, a large fish or reptile of cylindrical form
(he would not say “sea serpent”) ruffling the otherwise
smooth surface of the fjord. No head was visible. This
appears to have been, like the others from the same
locality, a large calamary. Mr. Stirling unaware, doubt-
less, that Mr. Edward Newman, editor of the Zoologist,
had previously propounded the same idea, suggested that
the supposed serpent might be one of the old marine
reptiles, hitherto supposed only to exist in the fossil state.
This letter was published in the /Yustrated News of Oc-
tober 28th, and four days afterwards, November 2nd, a
letter signed F. G. S. appeared in the Zzmes, in which the
same idea was mooted, and the opinion expressed that it
might be the Pleszosaurus. This brought out that great
master in physiology, Professor Owen, who in a long, and,
itis needless to say, most able letter to the Z7zmes, dated
the 9th of November, 1848, set forth a series of weighty
arguments against belief in the supposed serpent, which
I regret that I am unable, from want of space, to quote
im extenso. ‘The reasoning of the most eminent of living
physiologists of course had its influence on those who
could best appreciate it; but, as it went against the
current of popular opinion, it met with little favour from
the public, and has been slurred over much too super-
ciliously by some subsequent writers. He suggested also

G 2

84 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

that the creature seen might have been a great seal, such
as the leonine seal, or the sea-elephant (the head, as
shown in the enlarged drawing, was wonderfully seal-like),
but it was generally felt that this explanation was un-
satisfactory. The nature of his criticism of the official
statement will be seen from Captain M‘Quhe’s reply,
which was promptly given in the Zzmes of the 21st of
November, 1848, as follows :—

‘“‘ Professor Owen correctly states that I evidently saw a large
creature moving rapidly through the water very different from
anything I had before witnessed, neither a whale, a grampus, a
great shark, an alligator, nor any of the larger surface-swimming
creatures fallen in with in ordinary voyages. I now assert—neither
was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant, its great length and its
totally differing physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being
a ‘Phoca’ of any species. The head was flat, and not a ‘ capa-
cious vaulted cranium;’ nor had it a stiff, inflexible trunk—a
conclusion at which Professor Owen has jumped, most certainly
not justified by the simple statement, that no portion of the sixty
feet seen by us was used in propelling it through the water either
by vertical or horizontal undulation.

“It is also assumed that the ‘ calculation of its length was made
under a strong preconception of the nature of the beast ;’ another
conclusion quite contrary to the fact. It was not until after the
great length was developed by its nearest approach to the ship,
and until after that most important point had been duly considered
and debated, as well as such could be in the brief space of time
allowed for so doing, that it was pronounced to be a serpent by all
who saw it, and who are too well accustomed to judge of lengths
and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real substance and
an actual living body, coolly and dispassionately contemplated, at
so short a distance, too, for the ‘eddy caused by the action of the
deeper immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving gigantic seal
raising its head above the surface of the water,’ as Professor Owen
imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg.

‘““The creative powers of the human mind may be very limited.

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 85

On this occasion they were not called into requisition ; my purpose
and desire throughout being to furnish eminent naturalists, such
as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exagge-
rated representations, nor with what could by any possibility pro-
ceed from optical illusion; and I beg to assure him that old
Pontoppidan having clothed his sea-serpent with a mane could
not have suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen
from the ‘Dedalus’ witha similar appendage, for the simple
reason that I had never seen his account, or even heard of his
sea-serpent, until my arrival in London. Some other solution
must therefore be found for the very remarkable coincidence
between us in that particular, in order to unravel the mystery.

‘Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the possibility
of optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour,
and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty,
and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific
may exercise the ‘ pleasures of imagination’ until some more for-
tunate opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance
with the ‘ great unknown ’—in the present instance most assuredly
no ghost. |

“P. M‘QuuH4, late Captain of H.M.S. ‘ Dedalus.’ ”

Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else,
doubted the veracity or bona fides of the captain and
officers of one of Her Majesty’s ships; and their testimony
was the more important because it was that of men accus-
tomed to the sights of the sea. Their practised eyes would,
probably, be able to detect the true character of anything
met with afloat, even if only partially seen, as intuitively as
the Red Indian reads the signs of the forest or the trail ; and
therefore they were not likely to be deceived by any of the
objects with which sailors are familiar. They would not be
deluded by seals, porpoises, trunks of trees, or Brobdingna-
gian stems of alge ; but there was one animal with which
they were not familiar, of the existence of which they were
unaware, and which, as I have said, at that date was

86 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

generally believed to be as unreal as the sea-serpent itself

—namely, the great calamary, the elongated form of which

has certainly in some other instances been mistaken for

that of a sea-snake. One of these seen swimming in the

manner I have described, and endeavoured to portray

(p. 77), would fulfil the description given by Lieutenant

Drummond, and would in a great measure account for the

appearances reported by Captain M‘Quhe. “ The head long,

pointed and flat on the top,” accords with the pointed ex-

tremity and caudal fin of the squid. “ Head kept horizontal
wth the surface of the water, and in rather a raised position,

disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief
interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration.”

A pericet description of the position and action of a squid

swimming. “Vo portion of it perceptibly used in propelling
zt through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undula-

tions.’ The mode of propulsion of a squid—the outpouring

stream of water from its locomotor tube—would be unseen

and unsuspected, because submerged. Its effect, the swirl -
in its wake, would suggest a prolongation of the creature’s

body. The numerous arms trailing astern at the surface

of the water would give the appearance of a mane. I

think it not impossible that if the officers of the Dedalus

had been acquainted with this great sea creature the im-

pression on their mind’s eye would not have taken the

form of a.serpent. I offer this, with much diffidence, as a

suggestion arising from recent discoveries ; and by no means

insist on its acceptance; for Captain M‘OQuhe, who had a

very close view of the animal, distinctly says that “the

head was, without any doubt, that of a serpent,” and one of
his officers subsequently declared that the eye, the mouth,

the nostril, the colour, and the form were all most distinctly

visible,

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 87

In a letter addressed to the Editor of the Bombay Times,
and dated “ Kamptee, January 3rd, 1849,” Mr. R. Davidson,
Superintending Surgeon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, de-
scribes a great sea animal seen by him whilst on board
the ship Royal Saxon, on a voyage to India, in 1829. The
features of this incident are consistent with his having seen
one of the, then unknown, great calamaries.

Dr. Scott, of Exeter, sent to the Editor of the Zoologist
(p. 2459), an extract from the memorandum-book of Lieu-
tenant Sandford, R.N., written about the year 1820, when
he was in command of the merchant ship Lady Combermere.
In it he mentions his having met with, in lat. 46, long. 3
(Bay of Biscay), an animal unknown to him, an immense
body on the surface of the water, spouting, not unlike the
blowing of a whale, and the raising up of a triangular ex-
tremity, and subsequently of a head and neck erected six
feet above the surface of the water. ‘This was evidently a
great squid seen under circumstances similar to those
described by Hans Egede (p. 67).

In the Suz Newspaper of July oth, 1849, was published
the following statement of Captain Herriman, of the ship
Brazilian :

“‘On the morning of the 24th February, the ship being be-
calmed in lat. 26°S., long. 8° E. (about forty miles from the place
where Captain M‘Quhz is said to have seen the serpent), the
captain perceived something right astern, stretched along the
water to a length of twenty-five or thirty feet, and perceptibly
moving from the ship, with a steady sinuous motion. The head,
which seemed to be lifted several feet above the water, had some-
thing resembling a mane running down to the floating portion,
and within about six feet of the tail. Of course Captain Herriman,
Mr. Long, his chief officer, and the passengers who saw this came
to the conclusion that it must be the sea-serpent. As the ‘ Bra-
zilian’’ was making no headway, to bring all doubts to an issue,

88 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED,

the captain had a boat lowered, and himself standing in the
bow, armed with a harpoon, approached the monster. It was
found to be an immense piece of sea-weed, drifting with the
current, which sets constantly to the westward in this latitude,
and which, with the swell left by the subsidence of a previous
gale, gave it the sinuous snake-like motion.”

Captain Harrington, of the ship Castzlzan, reported in the
Times of February 5th, 1858, that:

“On the r2th of December, 1857, N.E. end of St. Helena
distant ten miles, he and his officers were startled by the sight of
a huge marine animal which reared its head out of the water
within twenty yards of the ship. The head was shaped like a long
nun-buoy,* and they supposed it to have been seven or eight feet
in diameter in the largest part, with a kind of scroll or tuft of loose
skin, encircling it about two feet from the top. The water was
discoloured for several hundred feet from its head, so much so
that on its first appearance my impression was that the ship was
in broken water.”

Evidently, again, a large calamary raising its caudal
extremity and fin above the surface, and discolouring the
water by discharging its ink.

This was immediately followed by a letter from Captain
Frederick Smith, of the ship Pez, who stated that :

“On December 28th, 1848, being then in lat. 26° S., long. 6° E.
(about half-way between the Cape and St. Helena), he saw a very
extraordinary-looking thing in the water, of considerable length.
With the telescope, he could plainly discern a huge head and neck,
covered with a shaggy-looking kind of mane, which it kept lifting
at intervals out of water. ‘This was seen by all hands, and was
declared to be the great sea-serpent. A boat was lowered ; a line
was made fast to the ‘snake,’ and it was towed alongside and
hoisted on board. It was a piece of gigantic sea-weed, twenty

* See illustration, p. 67.

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 89

feet long, and completely covered with snaky-looking barnacles.
So like a huge living monster did this appear, that had circum-
stances prevented my sending a boat to it, I should certainly have
believed I had seen the great sea-serpent.”

In September, 1872, Mr. Frank Buckland published, in
Land and Water, an account by the late Duke of Marl-
borough, of a “sea-serpent” having been seen several times
within a few days, in Loch Hourn, Scotland. A sketch of
it was given which almost exactly accorded with that of
Pontoppidan’s sea-serpent, namely, seven hunches or protu-
berances like so many porpoises swimming in line, preceded
by a head and neck raised slightly out of water. Many other
accounts have been published of the appearance of serpent-
like sea monsters, but I have only space for two or three
more of the most remarkable of them.

On the 1oth of January, 1877, the following affidavit was
made before Mr. Raffles, magistrate, at Liverpool :

“We, the undersigned officers and crew of the barque ‘Pauline’
(of London), of Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, in the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, do solemnly and
sincerely declare that, on July 8, 1875, in lat. 5° 13’S., long. 35° W.,
we observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped
round the body with two turns of what appeared to be a huge
serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the
coils of about thirty feet, and its girth eight feet or nine feet. The
serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen
minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head
first.

“Geo. Drevar, Master ; Horatio THOMPSON, JOHN HEN-
DERSON LANDELLS, OWEN BAKER, and WILLIAM

LEWARN,

“Again, on July 13, a similar serpent was seen, about two
hundred yards off, shooting itself along the surface, head and

90 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

neck being out of the water several feet. This was seen only
by the captain and one ordinary seaman.
* GEORGE DREVAR, Master.

“ A few moments after it was seen some 60 feet elevated per-
pendicularly in the air by the chief officer and the following
seamen :—Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, Wm. Lewarn. And
we make this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the
same to be true.”

In the ///ustrated London News, of November 2oth, 1875,
there had previously appeared a letter from the Rev. E. L.
Penny, Chaplain to H.M.S. Loudon, at Zanzibar, describing
this occurrence and also the representation of a sketch
(which I am kindly permitted to reproduce here), drawn by
him from the descriptions given by the captain and crew
of the Pauline. ‘The whale,” he said, “should have been
placed deeper in the water, but he would then have been
unable to depict so clearly the manner in which the animal
was attacked.” He adds that, “ Captain Drevar is a singularly
able and observant man, and those of the crew and officers
with whom he conversed were singularly intelligent ; nor did
any of their descriptions vary from one another in the least:
there were no discrepancies.” The event took place whilst
their vessel was on her way from Shields to Zanzibar, with
a cargo of coals, for the use of H.M.S. London, then the
guard ship on that station.

It is impossible to doubt for a moment the genuineness
of the statement made by Captain Drevar and his crew, or
their honest desire to describe faithfully that which they
believed they had seen ; but the height to which the snake is
said to have upreared itself is evidently greatly exaggerated ;
for it is impossible that any serpent could “elevate its body
some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air’”—nearly one-
third of the height of the Monument of the Great Fire of

gt

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT.

FIG. 20.—THE ‘*‘SEA SERPENT”? AND SPERM WHALE AS SEEN FROM THE ‘ PAULINE,’

92 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

London. I have no desire to force this narrative of the
master and crew of the Paulie into conformity with any
preconceived idea. “They may have seen a veritable sea-
serpent; or they may have witnessed the amours of two
whales, and have seen the great creatures rolling over and
over that they might breathe alternately by the blow-hole
of each coming to the surface of the water ; or the supposed
coils of the snake may have been the arms of a great
calamary, cast over and around the huge cetacean. The
other two appearances—lIst, the animal “seen shooting
itself along the surface with head and neck raised” (p. 77),
and 2nd, the elevation of the body to a considerable height,
as in Egede’s sea monster, (p. 67), would certainly accord
with this last hypothesis ; but, taking the statement as it
stands, it must be left for further elucidation.

On the 28th of January, 1879, a “sea-serpent” was seen
from the s.s. City of Baltimore, in the Gulf of Aden, by
Major H. W. J. Senior, of the Bengal Staff Corps. The
natrator “observed a long, black object darting rapidly in
and out of the water, and advancing nearer to the vessel.
The shape of the head was not unlike pictures of the
dragon he had often seen, with a bull-dog expression of the
forehead and eyebrows. When the monster had drawn its
head sufficiently out of the water, it let its body drop, as it
were a log of wood, prior to darting forward under the
water. This motion caused a splash of about fifteen feet
in length on either side of the neck much in the ‘ shape
of a pair of wings.” This last particular of its appearance,
as well as its movements, suggest a great calamary ; but,
as one with “a bull-dog expression of eyebrow, visible at
500 yards distance,” does not come within my ken, I will
not claim it as such.

In June 1877 Commander Pearson reported to the

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 93

Admiralty, that on the 2nd of that month, he and other
officers of the Royal Yacht Osborne, had seen, off Cape
Vito, Sicily, a large marine animal, of which the following
account and sketches were furnished by Lieutenant Haynes,

2A

-_———
—
—

~S

FIG. 2I.—THE “ SEA SERPENT” AS SEEN FROM THE ‘CITY OF
BALTIMORE,’

and were confirmed by Commander Pearson, Mr. Douglas
Haynes, Mr. Forsyth, and Mr. Moore, engineer.

“ Lieutenant Haynes writes, under date, ‘ Royal Yacht Osborne,
Gibraltar, June 6’: On the evening of that day, thesea being perfectly
smooth, my attention was first called by seeing a ridge of fins above

94 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

the surface of the water, extending about thirty feet, and varying
from five to six feet in height. On inspecting it by means of a

FIG. 22,—THE ‘*SEA SERPENT” AS SEEN FROM H.M. YACHT ‘ OSBORNE.’
PHASE I.

telescope, at about one and a-half cables’ distance, I distinctly saw
a head, two flappers, and about thirty feet of an animal’s shoulder,

FIG. 23.—THE ‘‘SEA SERPENT” AS SEEN FROM H.M. YACHT ‘ OSBORNE.’
PHASE 2,

The head, as nearly as I could judge, was about six feet thick, the
neck narrower, about four to five feet, the shoulder about fifteen

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT, 95

feet across, and the flappers each about fifteen feet in length. The
movements of the flappers were those of a turtle, and the animal
resembled a huge seal, the resemblance being strongest about the
back of the head. I could not see the length of the head, but
from its crown or top to just below the shoulder (where it became
immersed), I should reckon about fifty feet. The tail end I did
not see, being under water, unless the ridge of fins to which .my
attention was first attracted, and which had disappeared by the
time I got a telescope, were really the continuation of the shoulder
to the end of the object’s body. The animal's head was not always
above water, but was thrown upwards, remaining above for a few
seconds at a time, and then disappearing. There was an entire
absence of ‘ blowing,’ or ‘spouting.’ I herewith beg to enclose
a rough sketch, showing the view of the ‘ridge of fins,’ and also
of the animal in the act of propelling itself by its two fins.”

It seems to me that this description cannot be explained
as applicable to any one animal yet known. The ridge of
dorsal fins might, possibly, as was suggested by Mr. Frank
Buckland, belong to four basking sharks, swimming in
line, in close order ; but the combination of them with long
flippers, and the turtle-like mode of swimming, forms a
zoological enigma which I am unable to solve.

This brings us face to face with the question : “Is it then
so impossible that there may exist some great sea creature,
or creatures, with which zoologists are hitherto unacquainted,
that it is necessary in every case to regard the authors of
such narratives as wilfully untruthful, or mistaken in their
observations, if their descriptions are irreconcileable with
something already known?” I, for one, am of the opinion
that there is no such impossibility. Calamaries or squids
of the ordinary size have, from time immemorial, been
amongst the commonest and best known of marine
animals in many seas; but only a few years ago any one
who expressed his belief in one formidable enough to cap-

96 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

size a boat, or pulla man out of one, was derided for his
credulity, although voyagers had constantly reported that
in the Indian seas they were so dreaded that the natives
always carried hatchets with them in their canoes, with
which to cut off the arms or tentacles of these creatures, if
attacked by them. We now know that their existence is
no fiction; for individuals have been captured measuring
more than fifty feet, and some are reported to have
measured eighty feet, in total length. As marine snakes
some feet in length, and having fin-like tails adapted for
swimming, abound over an extensive geographical range,
and are frequently met with far at sea, I cannot regard it
as impossible that some of these also may attain to an
abnormal and colossal development. Dr. Andrew Wilson,
who has given much attention to this subject, is of the
opinion that “in this huge development of ordinary forms
we discover the true and natural law of the production of
the giant serpent of the sea.” It goes far, at any rate,
towards accounting for its supposed appearance. I am
convinced that, whilst naturalists have beensearching amongst
the vertebrata for a solution of the problem, the great un-
known, and therefore unrecognized, calamaries by their elon-
gated, cylindrical bodies and peculiar mode of swimming, have
played the part of the sea-serpent in many a well-authenti-
cated incident. In other cases, such as some of those men-
tioned by Pontoppidan, the supposed “ vertical undulations”
of the snake seen out of water have been the burly bodies
of so many porpoises swimming in line—the connecting
undulations beneath the surface have been supplied by the
imagination. The dorsal fins of basking sharks, as figured
by Mr. Buckland, or of ribbon-fishes, as suggested by Dr.
Andrew Wilson, may have furnished the “ridge of fins ;”
an enormous conger is not an impossibility; a giant turtle

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 97

may have done duty, with its propelling flippers and broad
back ; or a marine snake of enormous size may, really, have
been seen. But if we accept as accurate the observations
recorded (which I certainly do not in all cases, for they are
full of errors and mistakes), the difficulty is not entirely met,
even by this last admission, for the instances are very few
in which an ophidian proper—a true serpent—is indicated.
There has seemed to be wanting an animal having a long
snake-like neck, a small head and a slender body, and pro-
pelling itself by paddles.*

The similarity of such an animal to the Plesiosaurus of
old was remarkable. That curious compound reptile, which
has been compared with “a snake threaded through the
body of a turtle,” is described by Dean Buckland, in his
Bridgewater Treatise, as having “the head of a lizard, the
teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling
the body of a serpent, the ribs of a chameleon, and the
paddles of a whale.” In the number of its cervical vertebre
(about thirty-three) it surpasses that of the longest-necked
bird, the swan.

The form and probable movements of this ancient saurian
agree so markedly with some of the accounts given of the
“oreat sea-serpent,” that Mr. Edward Newman advanced
the opinion that the closest affinities of the latter would be

found to be with the Azaliosauria, or marine lizards, whose

* It must be noted, however, that in almost every case, except that
of the Osborne, the paddles were supposed, not seen, and were invented
to account for an animal of great length progressing at the surface of
the water at the rate of twelve to fifteen miles an hour without its being
possible to perceive, upon the closest and most attentive inspection,
any undulatory movement to which its rapid advance could be
ascribed. As the great calamaries were unknown, their mode of swift
retrograde motion, by means of an outflowing current of water, was
of course unsuspected.

H

98 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

fossil remains are so abundant in the oolite and the lis.

This view has also been‘taken by other writers, and empha-

—

Sie

restored by The Rev.W. D. Conybeare.

AAAI Raa, Wn,
Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus

i
Nays

a

a

FIG. 24.

tically by Mr. Gosse. Neither he nor
Mr. Newman insist that the “great
unknown” must be the Pleszosaurus
itself. Mr. Gosse says, “I should not
look for any species, scarcely even
any genus, to be perpetuated from
the oolitic period to the present. Ad-
mitting the actual continuation of
the order Exalosauria, it.would be, I
think, quite in conformity with general
analogy to find some salient features
of several extinct forms.”

The form and habits of the recently-
recognized gigantic cuttles account for
so Many appearances which, without
knowledge of them, were inexplicable
when Mr. Gosse and Mr. Newman
wrote, that I think this theory is not
now forced upon us. Mr. Gosse well

oo) .
* and clearly sums up the evidence as

follows: “Carefully comparing the
independent narratives of English
witnesses of known character and
position, most of them being officers
under the crown, we have a creature
possessing the following character-
istics?) ast.. The «general ‘form ;oi-ce
serpent. 2nd. Great length, say above
sixty feet. 3rd. Head considered to

resemble that of a serpent. 4th. Neck from twelve to
sixteen inches in diameter. 5th. Appendages on the head,

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 99

neck, or back, resembling a crest or mane. (Considerable
discrepancy in details.) 6th. Colour dark brown, or green,
streaked or spotted with white. 7th. Swims at surface of
the water with a rapid or slow movement, the head and
neck projected and elevated above the surface. 8th.
Progression, steady and uniform ; the body straight, but
capable of being thrown into convolutions. 9th. Spouts
in the manner of awhale. 10th. Like a long nun-buoy.”
He concludes with the question—‘ To which of the re-
cognized classes of created beings can this huge rover of
the ocean be referred ?”

Ireply: “To the Cephalopoda. There is not one of
the above judiciously summarized characteristics that is
not supplied by the great calamary, and its ascertained
habits and peculiar mode of locomotion.

Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the
balance of probability is contrary to the supposition that
any of the gigantic marine saurians of the secondary
deposits should have continued to live up to the present time.
And yet | am bound to say, that this does not amount
to an impossibility, for the evidence against it is entirely
negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be in
existence some congeners of these great reptiles inconsistent
with zoological science. Dr. J. E. Gray, late of the British
Museum, a strict zoologist, is cited by Mr. Gosse as having
long ago expressed his opinion that some undescribed form
exists which is intermediate between the tortoises and the
serpents.*

* Dr. Gray wrote in his ‘Synopsis of Genera of Reptiles,’ in the
Annals of Philosophy, 1825: “ There is every reason to believe from ~
general structure that there exists an affinity between the tortoises and
the snakes; but the genus that exactly unites them is at present

unknown to European naturalists ; which is not astonishing when we
consider the immense number of undescribed animals which are daily

SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

I0O

‘SW “assod ‘Hd ‘IN 44/7
‘SISHHLOGAH NVIUNVSOIIVNA AHL NO « LNIdMUAS Vas ,, THLI—' Sz NE

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. iO!

_ Professor Agassiz, too, is adduced by a correspondent of

the Zoologist (p. 2395), as having said concerning the present
existence of the Exaliosaurian type that “it would be in
precise conformity with analogy that such an animal should
exist in the American Seas, as he had found numerous
instances in which the fossil forms of the Old World were
represented by living types in the New.”

On this point, Mr. Newman records, in the Zoologzst
(p. 2356), an actual testimony which he considers, “in all
respects, the most interesting natural-history fact of the
present century.” He writes :

“‘ Captain the Hon. George Hope states that when in H.M.S.
‘Fly,’ in the Gulf of California, the sea being perfectly calm and
transparent, he saw at the bottom a large marine animal with the
head and general figure of the alligator, except that the neck was
much longer, and that instead of legs the creature had four large
flappers, somewhat like those of turtles, the anterior pair being
larger than the posterior; the creature was distinctly visible, and
all its movements could be observed with ease; it appeared to
be pursuing its prey at the bottom of the sea; its movements
were somewhat serpentine, and an appearance of annulations, or
ring-like divisions of the body, was distinctly perceptible. Captain
Hope made this relation in company, and as a matter of conver-
sation. When I heard it from the gentleman to whom it was nar-
rated, I enquired whether Captain Hope was acquainted with
those remarkable fossil animals /chthyosauri and Plesiosauri, the
supposed forms of which so nearly correspond with what he de-
scribes as having seen alive, and I cannot find that he had heard
of them; the alligator being the only animal he mentioned as
bearing a partial similarity to the creature in question.”

occurring. If I may be allowed to speculate from the peculiarities of
structure which I have observed, I am inclined to think that the union
will most probably take place by some newly discovered genera allied
to the marine or fluviatile soft-skinned turtles and the marine serpent.”

102 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED.

Unfortunately, the estimated dimensions of this creature
are not given.

That negative evidence alone is an unsafe basis for argu-
ment against the existence of unknown animals, the follow-
ing illustrations will show :

During the deep-sea dredgings of H.M.S. Lightning,
Porcupine, and Challenger, many new species of mollusca,
and others which had been supposed to have been extinct
ever since the chalk epoch, were brought to light ; and by
the deep-sea trawlings of the last-mentioned ship, there have
been brought up from great depths fishes of unknown
species, and which could not exist near the surface, owing
to the distension and rupture of their air-bladder when
removed from the pressure of deep water.

Mr. Gosse mentions that the ship in which he made the
voyage to Jamaica was surrounded in the North Atlantic,
for seventeen continuous hours by a troop of whales of
large size of an undescribed species, which on no other
occasion has fallen under scientific observation. Unique
specimens of other cetaceans are also recorded.

We have evidence, to which attention has been directed
by Mr. A. D. Bartlett, that “even on land there exists at
least one of the largest mammals, probably in thousands,
of which only one individual has been brought to notice,
namely, the hairy-eared, two horned rhinoceros (X. laszotis),
now in the Zoological Gardens, London. It was captured
in 1868, at Chittagong, in India, where for years collectors
and naturalists have worked and published lists of the
animals met with, and yet no knowledge of this great beast
was ever before obtained, nor is there any portion of one in
any museum. It remains unique.

I arrive, then, at the following conclusions: Ist. That,
without straining resemblances, or casting a doubt upon

THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 103

narratives not proved to be erroneous, the various appear-
ances of the supposed “Great Sea-serpent”” may now be
nearly all accounted for by the forms and habits of known
animals ; especially if we admit, as proposed by Dr. Andrew
Wilson, that some of them, including the marine snakes,
may, like the cuttles, attain to an extraordinary size.

2nd. That to assume that naturalists have perfect cogni-
zance of every existing marine animal of large size, would
be quite unwarrantable. It appears to me more than pro-
bable that many marine animals, unknown to science, and
some of them of gigantic size, may have their ordinary
habitat in the great depths of the sea, and only occasionally
come to the surface; and I think it not impossible that
amongst them may be marine snakes of greater dimensions
than we are aware of, and even a creature having close
affinities with the old sea-reptiles whose fossil skeletons tell
of their magnitude and abundance in past ages.

It is most desirable that every supposed appearance of
the “Great Sea-serpent” shall be faithfully noted and
described ; and I hope that no truthful observer will be
deterred from reporting such an occurrence by fear of the
disbelief of naturalists, or the ridicule of witlings.

FINIS.

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