Part 103

“When these fishes reach the surface of the water, the expansion of the gases within their body has so loosened all parts of their muscular and bony system, that they can be lifted out of the water with difficulty only, and nearly always portions of the body and fins are broken and lost..... At what depths ribbon-fishes live is not known; probably the depths vary for different species; but although none have been yet obtained by means of the deep-sea dredge, they must be abundant at the bottom of all oceans, as dead fishes or fragments of them are frequently obtained. Some writers have supposed from the great length and narrow shape of these fishes that they have been mistaken for “Sea-Serpents”; but as these monsters of the sea are always represented by those who have had the good fortune of meeting with them as remarkably active, it is not likely that harmless Ribbon fishes, which are either dying or dead, have been the objects described as “Sea-Serpents”.”

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The =nineteenth= explanation is that of Mr. ARTHUR ADAMS (see Zoologist, 1860, p. 7237) who believes that =a floating dead tree= “might have become a source of error, and given rise to yet another sea-serpent”. His article runs as follows:

“An incident occurred on board the vessel of which I am surgeon, which, I think, deserves to be recorded as an illustration of optical delusion that might have become a source of error, and given rise to yet another sea-serpent. We were sailing among the Islands of the Miatan group, at the entrance of the Gulf of Pe-Chili. There was little wind, and the gentle ripples covered the surface of the sea. I was sipping my Congo at the open port of the ward room on the main deck, admiring the setting sun, and watching the rounded outlines of the blue mountains and distant islands against the sky, and the numbers of sea-birds “wheeling rockwards to their nests”, when my eye rested on a long dark object apparently making its way steadily through the water. After observing it some time in silence I was sorely puzzled and could make nothing of it. It was neither a seal nor a diver nor a fishing cormorant, for with their forms I was familiar; so I went on deck and consulted other eyes than mine. Sundry glasses were brought to bear on the suspicious object, and the general scrutiny seemed to decide that it was a large snake, about ten feet long (or much longer according to some), working its way vigorously against the tide by lateral undulations of the body. So strong was this conviction that the course of the ship was altered, and a boat got ready for lowering. With a couple of loaded revolvers, some boathooks and a fathom or so lead-line, I made ready for the encounter, intending to range up alongside, shoot the reptile through the head, make him fast by a clove-hitch, and tow him on board in triumph! By this time, however, a closer and more critical inspection had taken place, and the supposed sea-monster turned himself into a long dark root, gnarled and twisted, of a tree, secured to the moorings of a fishing net, with the strong tide passing it rapidly, and thus giving it an apparent life-like movement and serpentine aspect.”

After Mr. DREW had published in Nature a case, in which he and many others were deceived by a large mass of flying shags, another contributor Mr. E. H. PRINGLE wrote the following (Nature, September 12, 1878):

“If you have space for the following, it is so confirmatory of Dr. Drew’s experience of an opera-glass dispelling “fond deceits” concerning a sea-serpent, that it may be worth recording.”

“One morning in October, 1869, I was standing amid a small group of passengers on the deck of the ill-fated P. and O. ss. Rangoon, then steaming up the straits of Malacca to Singapore. We were just within sight, so far as I remember, of Sumatra. One of the party suddenly pointed out an object on the port bow, perhaps half a mile off, and drew from us the simultaneous exclamation of “The sea-serpent!” And there it was, to the naked eye, a genuine serpent, speeding through the sea, with its head raised on a slender curved neck, now almost buried in the water, and anon reared just above its surface. There was the mane, and there were the well-known undulating coils stretching yards behind.”

“But for an opera-glass, probably all our party on board the Rangoon would have been personal witnesses to the existence of a great sea-serpent, but, alas for romance! one glance through the lenses and the reptile was resolved into a bamboo, root upwards, anchored in some manner to the bottom--a “snag” in fact. Swayed up and down by the rapid current, a series of waves undulated beyond it, bearing in their crests dark coloured weeds or grass that had been caught by the bamboo stem.”

“Ignorance of the shallowness of the straits so far from land, and of the swiftness of the current, no doubt led us to our first hasty conclusion, but the story, with Dr. Drew’s shows how prone the human mind is to accept the marvellous, and how careful we should be in forming judgments even on the evidence of our senses.”

Mr. ANDREW WILSON, in his Leisure Time Studies, speaking of this hypothesis says:

“Floating trunks and roots of trees, serving as a nucleus around which sea-weed has collected, and to which barnacles and sea-acorns--producing a variegated effect by reason of their light colour--have attached themselves in great numbers, have also presented appearances closely resembling those of large marine animals, swimming slowly along at the surface of the water. In one instance of this latter kind, related to me by a friend who was an actual spectator, the floating piece of timber assumed a shape imitating in the closest and most remarkable manner the head of some reptile,--by the same rule, I suppose, that in the gnarled trunks and branches of trees one may frequently discern likenesses to the human face and to the forms of other living things. In this latter instance, the floating object was perceived at some miles’ distance from the deck of a yacht; and even when seen through a telescope, and carefully scrutinized by men accustomed to make out the contour and nature of objects at sea, the resemblance to the head of some animal was so close that the course of the vessel was changed and the object in due time overhauled. This latter, therefore, presents an example of a case, the details of which, when related, tempt people to maintain without further parley, that sea-serpents always resolve themselves into inanimate objects of one kind or another.”

The extreme rapidity which is reported of the sea-serpent, banishes at once the idea of a dead organism.

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The =twentieth= explanation is: =a mass of flying birds=, of Mr. JOSEPH DREW, who wrote in Nature of the 5th. of September, 1878:

“On Monday, August 5, a number of geologists crossed in the Folkestone boat to Boulogne, to study the interesting formations of that neighbourhood, and, when about three or four miles from the French coast, one of these gentlemen suddenly exclaimed, “Look at that extraordinary object passing across the bow of the steamer about a mile or a mile and a-half in advance of us!” On turning in this direction there was seen an immense serpent apparently about a furlong in length, rushing furiously along at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles an hour; it was blackish in front and paler behind; its elongated body was fairly on the surface of the water and it progressed with an undulating or quivering motion, mirum erat spectaculum sane.”

“Of course many suppositions were immediately started to account for this extraordinary phenomenon, but they quickly changed and settled into the fixed idea that the object before them could be nothing less than the great sea-serpent himself; for--

“Prone on the flood, extended long and large, “Lay floating, many a rood, in bulk as huge “As whom the fables name of monstrous size, “Leviathan, which God of all his works “Created hugest, that swim the ocean stream.”

“The writer fortunately had with him one of Baker’s best opera-glasses, and, after a few moment’s use of this little instrument, the wonder was satisfactorily resolved. The first half of the monster was dark and glittering and the remainder of fainter hue, gradually, fading towards the tail. The glass did not determine the matter until the extreme end was reached, and then it was seen to consist of a mass of birds in rapid motion; those that were strong on the wing were able to keep well up with the leaders, and to make the head appear thicker and darker by their numbers, whilst those that had not such power of flight were compelled to settle into places nearer and nearer the tail. Doubtless these birds were shags (Pelecanus cristatus) returning to their homes for the night from the distant waters in which they had been fishing, during the day; perchance it may be wrong to assert positively as to the variety of bird, but in as much as the writer has often seen shags on the Cornish coast in smaller numbers returning in single or double file to their roosting places, and since it is stated in works of natural history that they have been noticed occasionally flying in this peculiar manner to the number of a thousand or more, it does not appear an unwarranted liberty in supposing that they really were Pelecani cristati.”

“It is to be feared some of the geological gentlemen still doubt the interpretation of the lorgnette, preferring the fond deceit of a large and unknown serpent; but as in this case individual birds (scores of them) were distinctly seen flapping their wings, the writer has thought it his duty to report the circumstance to you that your readers who voyage across the seas may keep their opera-glasses in their pockets and verify for themselves, on the first opportunity this interpretation of the great sea-serpent.”

This story induced Mr. BIRD (Nature, of 12th. September, 1878) to make a similar avowal:

“Dr. Drew’s letter in Nature, Vol. XVIII, p. 489, recalls to my mind a similar phenomenon witnessed by myself and a friend on August 8, while crossing from Grimsby to Rotterdam. It was towards evening, when, looking ahead, we saw a low, black hull, without masts or funnel, moving through the water at enormous speed. After a minute or two it undulated and rose from the surface, and we saw that it was a flight of birds.”

“The deception was so complete that I can well believe that at least many of the stories of the sea-serpent have so originated, though I doubt whether all can be explained in this manner.”

Mr. ANDREW WILSON, on the contrary wrote the following against this supposition (Nature, in the same number):

“The communication of Dr. Joseph Drew in your issue of yesterday regarding the serpentine appearance of a flock of shags in the English Channel is extremely interesting even as a mere fact regarding the habits of these birds. Will you kindly permit me, however, to point out that Dr. Drew’s statement cannot be regarded as explanatory of the sea-serpent’s personality? At the most the incident only explains one of a number of serpentine appearances of which porpoises and sunfishes swimming in line, pieces of wood with trains of sea-weed, &c., are also good examples. There have been placed on record numerous incidents of serpentine forms having been closely expected (as in the well-known case of the Daedalus, or later still of H. M. S. Osborne) where the hypothesis of the serpentine appearances assumed by flocks of birds or fishes could not be held as explanatory in any sense. It is with the view of showing that the exact personality of the “sea-serpent” cannot be accounted for by such an incident as Dr. Drew relates, that I venture to pen these remarks; and as a firm believer from the standpoint of zoology that the large development of the marine ophidians of warm seas offers the true explanation of the “sea-serpent” mystery, I would also ask your readers to distinguish carefully between cases in which serpentine appearances have been assumed by ordinary animals, and those in which one animal form has presented itself in the guise of the “great unknown”. I am far from contending that a sea-snake developed in the ratio of a giant “cuttle-fish”, presents the only solution of this interesting problem. A long tape-fish, or even a basking shark of huge dimensions, might do duty in the eyes of non-zoological observers for “a sea-serpent.”........ “At the same time zoologists cannot but feel indebted to Dr. Drew, and to those who, like that gentleman, note unwonted appearances in ordinary animal life, and communicate such incidents to your columns.”

A week afterwards the following article bearing upon the foregoing descriptions of flying sea-birds, appeared in the same journal from the pen of Mr. C. M. INGLEBY:

“The letters of Dr. Drew and others remind me of what I witnessed at Sandgate twenty four years ago. I was staying at a cottage on an elevation which commanded an extensive sea-view. One morning my attention was called to a large, dark, undulating body, which moved rapidly through the sea. As it was some way out from shore, I naturally concluded it to be of enormous length. I lost no time in making inquiries as to the nature of this phenomenon, and was so fortunate as to discover a fisherman who had witnessed it. He told me it was a flight of petrels. But for this I should certainly have believed that I had seen the Great Unknown. I have often seen a similar phenomenon, but nothing nearly so striking as this.”

In Nature of January 25, 1883, an alleged appearance of a sea-serpent is published. In the following number of Febr. 1st., a correspondent says that he often has witnessed a row of porpoises in the same locality; “I never, however, saw the head”. Now another correspondent thinking that he had solved the problem, wrote the following article in the next issue of the same journal:

“In the summer of 1881 I was staying for some weeks at Veulettes, on the coast of Normandy. While there, on several occasions, several members of my party, as well as myself, saw, at a distance of three or four miles out at sea, what had the appearance of a huge serpent. Its length was many times that of the largest steamer that ever passed, and its velocity equally exceeded that of the swiftest. What seemed its head was lifted and lowered, and sometimes appeared to show signs of an open mouth. The general appearance of the monster was almost exactly similar to that of the figure in your correspondent’s letter published on the 25th. ult. Not the slightest appearance of this continuity in its structure could be perceived by the eye, although it seemed incredible that any muscular mechanism could really drive such an enormous mass through the water with such a prodigious velocity. I carefully watched all that any of us caught sight of, and one day, just as one of these serpent forms was nearly opposite our hotel, it instantaneously turned through a right angle, but instead of going forward in the new direction of its length, proceeded with the same velocity broad side forward. With the same movement it resolved itself into a flock of birds.”