Part 28

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1852, Aug. 28.--Mr. ALFRED NEWTON, of Elveden Hall, forwarded the following report to the Editor of the Zoologist (see this journal for 1853, p. 3756).

“I have lately received the following account from my brother, Capt. Steele, 9th. Lancers, who on his way out to India in the Barham, saw the sea-serpent. Thinking it might be interesting to you, as corroborating the account of the Daedalus, I have taken the liberty of sending you the extract from my brother’s letter:--“On the 28th. of August, in long. 40° E., lat. 37° 16′ S., about half-past two, we had all gone down below to get ready for dinner, when the first mate called us on deck to see a most extraordinary sight. About five hundred yards from the ship there was the head and neck of an enormous snake; we saw about sixteen or twenty feet out of the water, and he spouted a long way from his head; down his back he had a crest like a cock’s comb, and was going very slowly through the water, but left a wake of about fifty or sixty feet, as if dragging a long body after him. The captain put the ship off her course to run down to him, but as we approached him, he went down. His colour was green, with light spots. He was seen by every one on board.” My brother is no naturalist, and I think this is the first time the monster has ever been seen to spout.”

“I am told by a gentleman whose brother was on board the ship (the Barham) referred in the following extract from “The Times” newspaper of November 17, 1852, that the occurrence there related took place between 35° and 40° S. lat. and 40° and 45° E. long., being about 650 miles due south of Madagascar. I understand that the particulars of the event as there stated closely agree with those furnished to my informant, and further, which is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole circumstance, that the animal was observed to “blow” or “spout” in the same manner that a whale does.”

“Extract from an Officer’s Letter written between the Cape and Madras. You will be surprised to hear that we have actually seen the great sea-serpent, about which there has been so much discussion. Information was given by a sailor to the captain, just as we were going to dinner. I was in my cabin at the time, and from the noise and excitement, I thought the ship was on fire. I rushed on deck, and on looking over the side of the vessel I saw a most wonderful sight, which I shall recollect as long as I live. His head appeared to be about sixteen feet above the water, and he kept moving it up and down, sometimes showing his enormous neck, which was surmounted with a huge crest in the shape of a saw. It was surrounded by hundreds of birds, and we at first thought it was a dead whale. He left a track in the water like the wake of a boat, and from what we could see of the head and part of his body, we were led to think he must be about sixty feet in length, but he might be more. The captain kept the vessel away to get nearer to him, and when we were within a hundred yards he slowly sank into the depths of the sea. While we were at dinner he was seen again, and a midshipman took a sketch of him, of which I will send you a copy.”--The Times.

Mr. GOSSE, in his Romance of Natural History, 1^{st} Series, p. 311, says of these rapports:

“The descriptions, however, show great discrepancy with that of the creature, seen from the Daedalus” (see report n^o. 118 in the next chapter) “and cannot be considered confirmatory of the former account, otherwise than as proving that immense unrecognized creatures of elongate form roam the ocean.”

“Mr. Alfred Newton, of Elveden Hall, an excellent and well-known naturalist, adds the guarantee of his personal acquaintance with one of the recipients of the above letters.”

“I note this, because discredit has been undeservedly cast on the phenomena observed, by foolish fabulous stories having been published under fictitious names, for the purpose of hoaxing.”

“If it were not for the spouting--which is not mentioned by one observer, and may possibly have been an illusion,--I should be inclined to think that this may have been one of the scabbard fishes, specimens of which inhabit the ocean of immense size. They carry a high serrated dorsal fin, and swim with the head out of the water.”

By inserting these reports in the present chapter, I already show my readers, that I agree with Mr. GOSSE, that this animal cannot have been a sea-serpent.

I confess that I am unable to give a decisive answer to the question as to what kind of animal it really was. Apparently the most plausible explanation is that given by Mr. Gosse, viz., that it was a riband or scabbard fish. The dorsal fin which in these kind of fishes begins at the occiput, is red or crimson coloured, and serrated, so that it may have given rise to the expressions of “a crest like a cock’s comb”, and “a huge crest in the shape of a saw”. But riband fishes are deep-sea fishes. When floating on the surface they are dying or already dead. They never “swim with their head above the surface”! Moreover the green colour does not agree with the common silvery hue of these animals. A riband fish is delineated in fig. 13, p. 93.

But wonderful it may seem that after having uttered this opinion, a few pages further on Mr. GOSSE uses this report amongst others to fix the class of living creatures to which the sea-serpent belongs. And what is the conclusion he arrives at?--that it belongs to the group of Plesiosauri, or at least is related to it!

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1858, July 9.--Another Sea-Serpent.--(Zoologist, 1859, p. 6492.)--“The Amsterdamsche Courant of October 6, 1858, inserts the following letter from Captain L. Bijl, of the Dutch bark “Hendrik Ido Ambacht”, to the “Jorn-Bode”:--“Sailing in the South Atlantic, in 27° 27′ N. Lat., and 14° 51,′ E. long., we perceived on July the 9th., between twelve and one o’clock in the afternoon, a dangerous sea monster, which during nine days constantly kept alongside of us to 37° 55′ S. lat., and 42° 9′ E. long. This animal was about 90 feet long and 25 to 30 feet broad, and, most of the time, it struck the ship with such a force as to make it vibrate. The monster blew much water, which spread an unpleasant stench over the deck. The captain, fearing lest the animal might disable the rudder, did his utmost to get rid of his fearful antagonist, but without success. After it had received more than a hundred musket-balls, a harpoon and a long iron bar, blood was seen to flow from various wounds, so that at last from loss of strength, the monster could swim behind our vessel no longer, and we were delivered of it. By its violent blows against the copper the animal’s skin had been damaged in several places.”--J. H. van Lennep, Zeist.”

Jorn Bode is most probably a misprint for Java-Bode. Zeist is the well-known charming village, east of Utrecht, the fourth town of the Netherlands.

As to the animal, seen from the Hendrik Ido Ambacht, I think it must have been a sick spermwhale, which was out of temper; why else should it have been so angry that it followed the bark nine days, cuffing it “most of the time”? Moreover the nature of spermwhales is well enough known as angry and war-like.

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1860?--In the Zoologist for this year we read p. 6934:

“A sea-serpent in the Bermudas.--I beg to send you the following account of a strange sea-monster captured on these shores, the animal being, in fact, no less than the great sea-serpent which was described as having been seen by Captain M’Quhae, of H. M. S. “Daedalus”, a few years since. Two gentlemen named Trimingham were walking along the shore of Hungary Bay, in Hamilton Island, on Sunday last, about eleven o’clock, when they were attracted by a loud rushing noise in the water, and, on reaching the spot, they found a huge sea-monster, which had thrown itself on the low rocks, and was dying from exhaustion in its efforts to regain the water. They attacked it with large forks which were lying near at hand for gathering in sea-weed, and unfortunately mauled it much, but secured it. The reptile was sixteen feet seven inches in length, tapering from head to tail like a snake, the body being a flatfish oval shape, the greatest depth at about a third of its length from the head, being eleven inches. The colour was bright and silvery; the skin destitute of scales but rough and warty; the head in shape not unlike that of a bull-dog, but it is destitute of teeth; the eyes were large, flat, and extremely brilliant, it had small pectoral fins, and minute ventral fins, and large gills. There were a series of fins running along the back, composed of short, slender rays, united by a transparent membrane, at the interval of something less than an inch from each other. The creature had no bone, but a cartilage running through the body. Across the body at certain intervals were bands, where the skin was of a more flexible nature, evidently intended for the creature’s locomotion, screw like, through the water. But its most remarkable feature was a series of eight long thin spines of a bright red colour springing from the top of the head and following each other at an interval of about an inch; the longest was in the centre: it is now in the possession of Colonel Munro, the acting Governor of the Colony; and I had the opportunity of examining it very closely. It is two feet seven inches long, about three eighth of an inch in circumference at the base, and gradually tapering, but flattened at the extreme end, like the blade of an oar. The shell of these spines is hard, and, on examination by a powerful glass, appeared to be double, some red colouring matter being between the shells; the outside, which to the touch and natural eye was smooth, being rough and much similar to the small claws or feelers of the lobster or crayfish. The centre was a wide pith, like an ordinary quill. The three foremost of these spines were connected for about half their length by a greasy filament; the rest being unconnected; the serpent had the power of elevating or depressing the crest at pleasure. The serpent was carefully examined by several medical and scientific gentlemen; the head, dorsal spine, and greater part of the crest are in the possession of J. M. Jones Esq., an eminent naturalist, who will, doubtless, send home a more learned description of this “wonder of the deep”. I regret that the immediate departure of the mail for England prevents my preparing you any more careful drawing of this great “sea-serpent” than that I enclose.”

Mr. NEWMAN, the Editor of the Zoologist, adds hereto the following note:

“Written by Captain Hawtaigne, of Her Majesty’s 39 Foot. I place implicit reliance on the narrative, except as to the animal being identical with that seen by Capt. M’Quhae, of which I think there is no evidence. Mr. J. M. Jones is an old subscriber to the Zoologist, and a most intelligent; but the query occurs to me, “Is not this sea-serpent a ribband fish?”--

Yes, this sea-serpent was a ribband fish. And the “eminent naturalist”, Mr. J. M. JONES, soon afterwards described this species for the Zoologist, p. 6986. Here we read that the Editor, Mr. EDWARD NEWMAN has “received the following particulars of this most interesting capture from an old and valued correspondent of the Zoologist. It must be read in connection with a previous note on the same animal in the April number of the Zoologist. (Zool. p. 6934)”.

Now follows the description of the animal, by Mr. J. MATHEW JONES, with which we will not trouble our readers, only referring them to our fig. 13, p. 93, of a ribband fish, closely allied to the specimen, captured in the Bermudas.

Mr. JONES adds comparisons of this fish with the great sea-serpent seen by Captain M’QUHAE (see report n^o. 118), and concludes that part of the reports concerning the great sea-serpent originated from the appearance of ribband fishes. His views of the matter, however, will be treated of in our chapter on the various explanations.

Immediately after this article Mr. NEWMAN wrote another, in which he shows that this fish is a new species, giving it the name Regalecus Jonesii, NEWMAN. How far Mr. NEWMAN was right in doing so, I am unable to decide. He gives a full description of his new species, and adds that he is not competent to express an opinion upon the similarity of Regalecus Jonesii to Capt. M’QUHAE’S sea-serpent.

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1878.--The Scotsman of September 6th. of this year has inserted in its columns the following account.