a thick blubber, was esteemed as good as May butter." The flesh of the old, when well boiled, resembled beef; and that of the young, veal. The crew preserved several casks of it, which was found of excellent service in their escape from their horrible confinement.

It is very generally supposed that there are other species of this genus besides the above, but concerning these nothing satisfactory has been determined.

GROUP III.

"In mari multa latent."-OPPIAN.

WE come now, in conclusion, to offer a few remarks on those two strange and extraordinary animals to which we shortly adverted in the Introduction. And, first, of

THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT.

Scoliophis Atlanticus? Linn. Soc. of Boston.

1

From Wern. Trans. vol. i.

THAT much fable and exaggeration have been mixed up with the history of the Great Sea-Serpent, cannot be doubted; still, however, the inquiry recurs, what portion of truth is involved amidst this error ?

We turn, first, to an account of an animal which apparently belonged to this class, which was stranded in the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, in the year 1808, and which was first seen

entire, and measured by respectable individuals, and afterwards, when dead and broken in pieces by the violence of the waves, was again examined by many; portions of it being secured, such as the skull, and upper bones of the swimming paws, by Mr Laing, a neighbouring proprietor; and other portions, such as the vertebræ, &c., by being deposited and beautifully preserved in the Royal Museum of the University of Edinburgh, and in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. An able paper 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 can allow space only for a very short abridgment of these documents, which, be it remembered, furnish an account of the animal principally after it had been mutilated; and hence we cannot wonder if the original accounts are both imperfect and contradictory. It measured fifty-six feet in length, and twelve in circumference. The head was small, not being a foot in length, from the snout to the first vertebre; the neck was slender, extending to the length of fifteen feet. All the accounts agree in assigning it blow-holes, though they differ as to their 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 some

1

what like toes, partially webbed.

Probably the

sketch is particularly defective respecting these. Dr Fleming, in his notice of this animal, suggests that these members were probably the remains of pectoral, ventral, and caudal fins.* The skin was smooth, without scales, and of a greyish colour; and the flesh appeared like coarse ill-coloured beef. The eye was of the size of the Seal's; the throat was too narrow to admit the hand. Though conveying probably a very imperfect representation of the animal, we have supplied above a wood-cut of the sketch which was taken at the time, and which, from the many affidavits proffered by most respectable individuals, as well as from other circumstances narrated, leaves no manner of doubt as to the existence of some such animal.

We shall next allude to the unvarnished account recently given, of a great animal which excited considerable astonishment and alarm among the Western Isles of Scotland. The following extract is taken froin a letter of Mr Maclean, the parish minister of Eigg, dated 1809, to Dr Neill, the learned and worthy secretary of the Wernerian Society:-" I saw the animal of which you enquire in June 1808, on the coast of Coll. Rowing along that coast, I observed, at about the distance of half a mile, an object to windward, which gradually excited astonishment. At first view it appeared like a small rock; but, knowing that there was no rock in that situation, I fixed my

Brit. An. p. 173.

eyes closely upon it. Then I saw it elevated considerably above the level of the sea, and, after a slow movement, distinctly perceived one of its eyes. Alarmed at the unusual appearance and magnitude of the animal, I steered so as to be at no great distance from the shore. When nearly in a line between it and the shore the monster, directing its head which still continued above water towards us, plunged violently under water. Certain that he was in chase of us, we plied hard to get ashore.

Just

as we leapt out on a rock, and had taken a station as high as we conveniently could, we saw it coming rapidly under water towards the stern of our boat. When within a few yards of it, finding the water shallow, it raised its monstrous head above water, and, by a winding course, got, with apparent difficulty, clear of the creek where our boat lay, and where the monster seemed in danger of being embayed. It continued to move off with its head above water, and with the wind for about half a mile, before we lost sight of it. Its head was somewhat broad, and of form somewhat oval; its neck somewhat smaller; its shoulders, if I can so term them, considerably broader, and thence it tapered towards the tail, which last it kept pretty low in the water, so that a view of it could not be taken so distinctly as I wished. It had no fins that I could perceive, and seemed to me to move progressively by undulation up and down. Its length I believed to be between seventy and eighty feet. When nearest to me it did not raise its head wholly above water, so