Part 24

“It is of importance to science; that it should be ascertained, that this fish is not a new animal unlike any of the ordinary productions of nature, and we are indebted to the zeal and liberality of Mr. Meason and Mr. Laing, who have collected a sufficient body of evidence to enable me to determine that point, and prove it to be a Squalus, and the orifices behind the eye, which communicate with the mouth met with in the skull, renders it very probable, that it is a Squalus maximus.”

“This opinion is further confirmed by the Squalus maximus, known by the name of the basking shark, being frequently seen upon the coast of Scotland.”

The only remark I have to make is: Mr. HOME will never have believed that the animal of Stronsa really measured 56 feet, and so made himself guilty of throwing discredit on the accurate measuring of the eye-witnesses.

I present here to my readers the figure of a Squalus maximus, or Basking-shark, thus enabling them to make this animal’s acquaintance, if they don’t know it yet.

Of course Mr. BARCLAY rejected Mr. Home’s supposition, and wrote a paper against it, printed in the first volume of the above mentioned Memoirs, running as follows:

“Since reading the first paper of Mr. Home, where he treats of the vertebrae of the Squalus maximus, I have seen another, entitled “An anatomical account of the Squalus maximus”. In this last paper, he seems to be convinced, that the animal of Stronsa is a Squalus maximus. The scale on which he draws his figure of the squalus, is a scale of half an inch to a foot.”

“Measuring by this scale, the head of his squalus is five feet and a half, from the joint of the upper jaw to the gills. The dried and shrivelled head of the animal of Stronsa, measures only twelve inches from the first vertebra to the farthest part that remains of the jaw.”

“The diameter of the head of the squalus maximus, from right to left, at the angle of the mouth, was, according to Mr. Home, five feet. The broadest part of the head of the animal of Stronsa is, in its present state, only seven inches.”

“The diameter of the larger vertebrae, near the head, in the squalus, was, according to Mr. Home, seven inches. The first cervical vertebra in the animal of Stronsa, is still adhering to the head, and is only two inches in diameter.”

“Yet some of the vertebrae of this animal, which are still preserved, are six inches and a half in diameter; and the first vertebrae which I saw, were from four to five and a half inches across.”

“The smallness of the cervical vertebrae, in the animal of Stronsa, confirms the account of those who saw it, that the animal had a neck. But the Squalus maximus, if Mr. Home’s figure be accurate, had nothing resembling a neck. And, indeed, Artedi observes, that “omnes pisces qui pulmonibus destituuntur, collo quoque carent: Ergo soli pisces cetacei collum habent.” The presence of a neck, therefore, as peculiar to cetaceous fishes, confirms likewise the account of the spiracula or ear-holes, ascribed to this animal of Stronsa.”

“The length of Mr. Home’s squalus was thirty feet six inches. The length of the animal of Stronsa, by actual measurement was fifty five feet, or, exclusive of the head, fifty four; and yet a part of the tail was supposed to be wanting. The circumference of the animal of Stronsa was, by actual measurement, about ten feet, meant, I suppose, at the thickest part. If the animal had been cylindrical at that part, the diameter from the dorsal to the sternal aspect must have been about three feet four inches. The diameter of the squalus at the thickest part, measuring from the dorsal to the sternal aspect, is nearly six feet; its circumference, had it been cylindrical nearly eighteen feet.”

“The animal of Stronsa had a mane, extending from the shoulder to near the caudal extremity (i. e. about thirty nine feet), after deducting the length of the head and neck, which, when together were sixteen feet. I have still a specimen of that mane, which I got from Mr. Urquhart; and all the specimens which were brought here, confirm the accounts that were sent of it from the Orkneys. The bristles of that mane are not like the radii of a fin, nor, although they were, has the squalus a fin extending from the shoulder to the tail.”

“A drawing which was sent to me by our very active and obliging Secretary, Mr. Neill, was executed, I am told, from the original, by Mr. Urquhart; and its accuracy is confirmed by the dried specimen now before us. It represents the sternum and two parts corresponding two scapulae, and those organs which are named paws. Mr. Home says, that these organs resemble the pectoral fins of his squalus. But the length of the pectoral fins, measuring along the upper margin, is four feet, the length of the paw cannot be determined, as part of it is wanting; the part that remains, measures seventeen inches.”

“The breadth of the fin, measuring across the radii, is three feet and seven inches; while the greatest breadth of the paw in its dried state, is only five inches and three quarters.”

“Those parts which in form resemble the scapulae and exhibit articular surfaces at each extremity, were probably ribs.”

“Mr. Home concludes by observing, that “it is of importance to science, that it should be ascertained, that this fish is not a new animal, unlike any of the ordinary productions of nature.” Of what importance it is to science to admit no new genera or species into our catalogues of natural history, I cannot conceive. But it is certainly of much importance to science, that the naturalist should be cautious not to determine the species of an animal upon vague evidence. Now what evidence had Mr. Home that this animal was a squalus, and even to suppose that it was a squalus maximus?”

I may be allowed to make the following remark: Mr. BARCLAY does not seem to make any difference between “a head” of a Squalus and “a skull.” It is true that the “head” of a Squalus maximus of thirty feet and a half measures five feet and a half, but its “skull” has only a length of ten inches. It is true that the diameter of the “head” of such a shark measures from right to left about five feet, but its “skull” would have only a few inches in breadth. It is true that the diameter of the larger vertebrae near the head of such an individual may be about seven inches, but what is indicated by Mr. BARCLAY in the head of his “animal of Stronsa” to be the “first cervical vertebra”, is (don’t laugh!) the cartilaginous nose tip with its two contorted cartilaginous appendages!--No wonder that the animal of Stronsa had “a neck”, for all the parts between the skull and the pectoral fins, except the vertebral column and some adherent flesh, were washed away, whilst the basking shark of Mr. HOME had no neck, because it was entire.--Curious, indeed, is the naive passage in which ARTEDI is quoted!

In the comparison of Mr. HOME’S basking shark and his own stranded animal, Mr. BARCLAY also wholly overlooks, when he states the dimensions, that they were those of the entirely putrified remains of an animal, and not of an undamaged being.

Dr. BARCLAY seems to entirely reject Mr. HOME’S idea that the “mane” had never extended over the whole back, but what was seen were only fibres of the putrified backfins, in the two places of the foremost and the hindmost backfin, and that the rest of the “mane” only existed in the imagination of the witnesses.

In comparing the dimensions of the pectoral fins and the paws, Mr. BARCLAY again forgets that he has only before him a totally mutilated specimen.

An extract from the “Remarks” of Dr. BARCLAY was given by Dr. HOFFMANN in OKEN’S Isis, II, 1818, p. 2096, where amongst others he says:

“The paper is full of obscurities, which originate as well in the differences of the reports of uneducated eye-witnesses, as in the slubbering and inaccurate mode of describing of the writer himself;” but Mr. HOFFMANN himself is not free from inaccuracies! In none of Dr. BARCLAY’S papers mention is made of a “membranaceous comb extended over bony rays, which was running from the shoulders to the end of the tail, over the back.” He has evidently translated this (if we may use this expression) from the figure (see our fig. 7). But this figure was made for print by Mr. SYME, after a drawing made on one of the islands from the description given there, and Mr. SYME has changed the “mane” (long loose hairs hanging down) into a true backfin of an eel, which he figured exactly as he was accustomed to do. Every one will be convinced of the truth of my assertion, if he will give himself the trouble to compare the figures of eels and muraenas, made by the same Mr. SYME in the same volume, with the engraving of the “animal of Stronsa.”

Immediately after this paper Mr. OKEN, the editor of the Isis, wrote another one, in which he begins by saying that the imperfect description of the animal does not allow to prove any relationship with other animals. Further he comes to the conclusion, that, as no animal with a bony skeleton has six feet, it must have been a cartilaginous fish, a male one, of which the two pterygopodia (a pair of additional paring-organs, the so-called “claspers” or “holders”) were regarded as the third pair of feet, whilst the ventral and pectoral fins were the other pairs. “It is, however, no shark,” he goes on, and adduced 7 proofs for this theory; “it is, neither a cetacean,” and for this opinion he gives 4 different reasons. And yet he has the boldness to conclude: “The animal consequently is more related to the sharks, and as it is not a true shark, it must be a Chimaera”; but the reasons given to prove this are of course still more forced and irrelevant. I will add here that he also says: “finally individuals of Chimaera of 30 feet in length, have already been caught”, a manifest untruth, for the largest ever measured were of three feet and a half!--For those readers who never saw a Chimaera, or sea-cat, or a figure of it, I have delineated the Chimaera monstrosa in our fig. 9.

In the Edinb. Philos. Journ. Vol. V, 1821, an analysis is published of one of the vertebrae of the Orkney-Animal. The analysis was made by Dr. JOHN DAVY, and communicated “a considerable time ago” by Dr. LEACH to the Wernerian Society. To trouble my readers with this analysis would be superfluous.

Dr. HIBBERT in his Description of the Shetland Islands, 1822, really believes that:

“The existence of the sea-snake,--a monster of fifty-five feet long, is placed beyond a doubt, by the animal that was thrown on shore in Orkney, the vertebrae of which are to be seen in the Edinburgh Museum.”

Dr. HAMILTON too, in his Amphibious Carnivora, 1839, is of the same opinion: “We turn first” he says “to an account of an animal which apparently belonged to this class” (viz. the class of sea-serpents), “which was stranded in the Island of Stronsa, one of the Orkneys, in the year 1808”, and he goes on giving some details of the stranded animal, taken from the Memoirs of the Wernerian Society. Later on we learn from him that: