Part 14

*1885, July, 29-Sept. 6.--=W. Reid.= History of Sea-Serpents.--=John O’Groat= Journal.

*1885, Sept. 1.--The Sea-Serpent again.--Scotsman.

1885, Sept. 10.--Nature, Vol. XXXII.

*1886, Sept. 15.--The Sea-Serpent again.--Evening Dispatch, Edinburgh.

1886, Sept. 25.--The Graphic.

1886.--=W. E. Hoyle.= Sea-Serpent.--Encyclopaedia Britannica Ed. 9.

1886.--=W. E. Hoyle.= Contribution to a Bibliography of the Sea-Serpent (read 21st. April, 1886).--Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. 1886.

*1889, May 21.--De Grondwet, n^o 38.--(Journal, edited in Holland, Michigan, U. S. A.)

1889, June 6.--Haagsche Courant.

1889, Dec. 7?--=John Ashton.= Curious Creatures in Zoology.--With 130 Illustrations throughout the text. London, John C. Nimmo (1890) p. 268-278.

1890, July 12.--De Amsterdammer, Weekblad voor Nederland.

and probably:

*17 ?--=Mongitore.= Remarkable Objects of Sicily.

*18 ?--=Leguat.= Travels to Rodrigues Island.

*1888.--=A. Nicholson.= Snakes, Marsupials and Birds.

Should any reader know of any other contribution to the literature of the sea-serpent, he is earnestly requested by the author of this work to inform him about it.

II.

Attempts to discredit the Sea-Serpent. Cheats and Hoaxes.

Home from their first voyage, sailor-lads, as Mr. Gosse says, are commonly eagerly beset for wonders. And what tales do they palm upon their credulous listeners? If they do not draw on their own invention, they tell the old stories they have heard when on fine evenings they were together with the old tars talking and chatting on the fore-deck. Of the latter many have no other origin than the imagination of a sailor’s brain; they are merely hoaxes; others again are exaggerated and garbled reports of what they have seen with their own eyes, or of what their comrades or their captain saw! There are the tales of the Unicorn, of the White Whale, that terrible “Moby Dick” of the Polar Regions, there are the fables of the Mermaids and Mermen, there are the exaggerations of the Kraken and the Sea-Serpent!

Except the last, all the other animals that gave rise to the terrible tales are known to Zoologists, and by their enlightenment even to the sailors themselves. This probably explains sufficiently why our sailors do not report any more encounters with Mermaids, or with the Kraken. They know now that they saw, or harpooned, manatees, or dugongs, and gigantic squids, or calamaries.

But suddenly the newspapers spread the rumour of a Sea-Serpent having been seen by Captain So and So, of the Royal Navy, and by the master, several midshipmen, and some men of the crew! The news is printed in hundreds of newspapers, and passes from mouth to mouth, in short, it becomes the topic of the day! A schooner, or a brig runs into a harbour, say that of Liverpool, and the Captain, and the crew are immediately asked if they have seen the sea-serpent. Unaware of the existence of such an animal they of course answer in the negative! But soon convinced by the affidavits printed in the newspapers, they swear that when on their next voyage they meet with it, they will bring it home! But on the next voyage, though they are constantly on the watch, the sea-serpent does not appear, and the time for returning home arrives. One of the sailors, perhaps even the captain hits upon an idea, a splendid one! Though he did not meet with the serpent, yet he has seen it with his own eyes! but the beast swam so rapidly that he could not pursue it! So in a moment he is resolved on hoaxing the gullible!

It is clear that the unbeliever must have had a great pleasure in inventing the hoax upon the subject, and in playing some splendid tricks on the believers!

Some of these hoaxes are admirably set up, and I will begin by telling my readers some of them, which I met with in the various works I had the opportunity to consult.

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The earliest hoax or exaggerated report is that, published for the first time in the Report of 1817. There we find in a letter from the Rev. Mr. WILLIAM JENKS the following:

“He” (Mr. STAPLES of Prospect) “told me also that about 1780, as a schooner was lying at a mouth of the river, or in the bay, one of these enormous creatures leaped over it between the masts--that the men ran into the hold for fright, and that the weight of the serpent sunk the vessel “one streak” or plank. The schooner was of about eighteen tons.”

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Now follows the hoax of a JOSEPH WOODWARD, who had reason to be satisfied, for his tale appeared in many newspapers at Boston, New York, etc. It runs as follows: