Part 90

“Before ending the history of the interesting beings of which I have treated, I cannot help saying a few words about an animal, observed through centuries by many people of all ranks, and known to every one from the tales which are spread about it, but which is still ignored by naturalists. I mean the monstrous sea-serpent of the North, which in reality has nothing to do either with the sea-snakes, of which we have treated in the foregoing pages, or with my work. The numerous evidences given by very respectable persons to prove the existence of this enormous sea-animal, have imposed silence upon naturalists; I too should be silent, when the doubt which I always felt had not been turned into certainty by a little observation I made in the spring of 1826. Once when hunting on a stormy day along the coasts of the sea, I suddenly saw a sea-animal of great size swimming before the mouth of the Rhine-river. I was about to fire at this animal which I took for a shark, when I distinguished through the fog several others closely following each other. For the greater part hidden by the water, the upper part of this creature could be distinctly seen only for the short moment, when it was carried on the top of a wave, and plunged down into the precipice formed before it. The illusion caused by the continuous agitation of the waves indeed contributed to make doubtful the appearance of a great number of black objects, appearing together out of the water, disappearing the moment afterwards, and the whole of which deceitfully represented the simultaneous movements of the undulations of one single body. Convinced that the animals were unable to swim in vertical undulations, I kept looking at this spectacle, till I knew this monstrous creature to be composed of a little troop of porpoises.”

In the Archiv für Naturgeschichte, of 1841, Mr. RATHKE, who published in it seven accounts of sea-serpents, gathered by him on his journey in Norway, says:

“If we submit the above mentioned evidences to an inquiry, we shall soon observe that they not only contain several contradictory statements, but that each of the evidences itself cannot even pretend to accuracy. Yet we may believe that what those persons took for a long animal, was really such a one. For I should not know, what else could be the cause of the illusion which has created the belief in such an animal. Truly, I know that some believe, that what has been taken for a so-called sea-serpent, to be nothing else but a row of porpoises, swimming in line. But all those persons, by whom the above-mentioned evidences are given were too familiar with the sea, and have too often observed porpoises together, to be deceived by a row of such animals swimming on the surface of the water. If this, however, had been the case, all the observations related to me of the sea-serpent’s holding its head above the surface, and about the size of it, must have been mere fiction, and this I cannot admit. According to all this, it evidently cannot be doubted, that there is a long serpentine animal in the sea of Norway, which may grow to a considerable length.”

Again, as we learn in FRORIEP’S Neue Notizen, Vol. XXVIII, n^o. 606, p. 184, Nov. 1843, the Editors of the Christiansand’s Posten after an account of a new appearance of the sea-serpent in the fjord of Christiansand, inserted in their columns, add the following remarks:

“This whole description tallies well with an appearance, which the writer of these lines has witnessed a few times in the North Sea, and if the inhabitants of the coast near Ibbestad, if not withheld by their fear of the supposed sea-monster, had rowed their boats to near the animal, they would undoubtedly have soon observed that the supposed intervals between the coils were nothing else but water. This great sea-serpent in reality consists of a row of porpoises, which in a shoal of from eight to twelve often swim after each other in line. As each of these brown animals, eight or ten feet long, when swimming, appears above the surface of the water at proportionably short intervals, in such a way, as if they were about to tumble head first, so every one, who sees such a row swimming, must at first sight believe to see the coils of an immense snake.”

In a letter from Mr. J. D. MORRIES STIRLING to Captain HAMILTON, R. N., Secretary to the Admiralty, we find the passage (see Ill. Lond. News of October 28, 1848, and our n^o. 113):

“I mention my friend being a porpoise shooter, as many have believed that a shoal of porpoises following each other has given rise to the fable, as they called it, of the sea-serpent.”

In ANDREW WILSON’S Leisure Time Studies we read, 1879:

“The instance already alluded to, of a shoal of porpoises swimming in line, with their backs and dorsal fins appearing now and then, with a kind of regular alternating motion above the surface of the water, presents an example of a deceptive appearance brought about by a somewhat unusual habit of familiar animals.”

Mr. LEE in his Sea Monsters Unmasked, 1883, treating of the figure of Mr. BENSTRUP (see our fig. 24), says:

“The supposed coils of the serpent’s body present exactly the appearance of eight porpoises following each other in line.”

I have treated of his explanation in the right place (n^o. 10). And on the following page he also asserts:

“I believe that in every case so far cited from Pontoppidan, as well as that given by Olaus Magnus, the supposed coils or protuberances of the serpent’s body were only so many porpoises swimming in line in accordance with their habit before mentioned. If an upraised head, like that of a horse, was seen preceding them, it was either unconnected with them, or it certainly was not that of a snake; for no serpent could throw its body into those vertical undulations.”

I repeat here what I have said above (n^o. 10): If Mr. LEE wishes to explain the coils by reference to porpoises, he ought to tell me what was the head that resembled a horse’s head.

Again on p. 96 of his work, after having concluded that the great calamaries “have played the part of the sea-serpent in many well-authenticated incidents”, he says: “In other cases, such as some of those mentioned by Pontoppidan, the supposed vertical undulations of the snake seen out of water have been the burly bodies of so many porpoises swimming in line--the connecting undulations beneath the surface have been supplied by the imagination.”

After an alleged appearance of a sea-serpent near Great Orme’s Head (n^o. 155), Mr. SIDEBOTHAM, a correspondent of Nature writes in this journal (1883, Febr. 1):

“I have seen four or five times something like what your correspondent describes and figures, at Llandudno, crossing from the Little Orme’s Head across the bay, and have no doubt whatever that the phenomenon was simply a shoal of porpoises. I never, however, saw the head your correspondent gives, but in other respects what I have seen was exactly the same; the motions of porpoises might easily be taken for those of a serpent; once I saw them from the top of the Little Orme, they came very near the base of the rock, and kept the line nearly half across the bay.”

Here we have a remarkable assertion: “I never, however, saw the head.” I remind here my readers of Mr. CUMMINGS’ question “who ever saw a row of porpoises with a head of a seal?”

I need not say that porpoises swimming in line, do so very irregularly. They are in the habit of continually throwing up their bodies half above the surface of the water, and so their backfin is clearly visible, but nowhere the sea-serpent is said to have on each coil a backfin. Sometimes one porpoise is only visible, a moment afterwards three, eight, or more, but never the whole row is seen at once, while the undulations of the sea-serpent are constantly visible above the surface, moving with the greatest regularity. Every one will feel that this explanation is not satisfactory; it does not even explain a single observation. Besides, how to explain the swan-like neck, so often seen by reference to porpoises? To avoid repetitions, I beg the reader to refer to the testimonies of Mr. CUMMINGS (n^o. 29) and Mr. PRINCE (n^o. 63), in which they clearly bring to light the difference between the appearance of the sea-serpent and that of a row of porpoises.

And where a naturalist, like Mr. SCHLEGEL, describes the effect caused by a row of porpoises, he has no right to assert that those persons who declare to have seen the sea-serpent, were the dupe of an optical illusion. Mr. SCHLEGEL should have said: “On one occasion I was nearly deceived by a row of porpoises, but alas, I never saw a sea-serpent!”

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The =second= explanation is that of the Committee of the Linnaean Society of New England (Boston). This Committee consisted of the Hon. Judge DAVIS, Prof. JACOB BIGELOW, and Mr. FRANCIS C. GRAY. This learned body after having published, 1817, exceedingly interesting reports, was of course morally bound to explain the phenomenon. What kind of beast could it be!? and before they began to feel puzzled, a deus ex machina in the form of a sick, illformed and lame little snake presented itself suddenly in a field near Loblolly Cove. It was killed by a working man at that place, bought by Dr. So and So, and presented to the Committee to examine it, because people believed that this animal was a spawn of the great sea-serpent. The Committee really examined and dissected it and gave a full account of their experience in their Report. They considered the little =snake= to be =new to science=, closely allied to the Coluber constrictor or Black Snake, a common species of North-America, and gave it the name of Scoliophis atlanticus. This account is followed by two documents describing how the Scoliophis looked while it was alive, and the circumstance under which it was killed. I present here to my readers the Scoliophis atlanticus reduced to ¹⁄₆ of its size, and a separate full-sized figure of its head, showing the two wounds caused by the pitchfork with which the animal was killed.

Next they gave: “A few remarks on the question” (broached by the public) “whether the great serpent, seen in the Harbour of Gloucester be the Scoliophis Atlanticus.” These “few remarks” fill three pages and a half and end with the words:

“On the whole, as these two animals agree in so many conspicuous, important and peculiar characters, and as no material difference between them has yet been clearly pointed out, excepting that of size, the Society will probably feel justified in considering them individuals of the same species, and entitled to the same name, until a more close examination of the great Serpent shall have disclosed some difference of structure, important enough to constitute a specific distinction.”

It is quite astonishing that scientific men could come to the conclusion that the large animal, that gave rise to the 51 accounts which the Committee could have gathered up to their days, was a full grown individual of the species they called Scoliophis atlanticus! If they had collected all these accounts, if they had seriously compared them, they would have come most probably to the conclusion that they did not know precisely what it was, but that it could never be a snake.

Also from another point of view it is hard to explain that the Committee believed the sea-serpent to be of the same species as the little Scoliophis. Three persons mentioned the tongue, which was not bifid, while the tongue of Scoliophis is so! And the most accurate testimonies agree that the skin was smooth and had no scales!

The newspapers brought the accounts of 1817 to Europe and no doubt drew the attention of many zoologists, but only Mr. H. M. DUCROTAY DE BLAINVILLE dared handle the subject publicly. As soon as the Report of the Committee of 1817 reached him, he made an extract from it in his Journal de Physique, etc., Vol. 86, 1818, Paris. He, however, made much more of the little curious snake, apparently believing too that it was a new species, than of the large marine animal of which he was unable to give any explanation. Mr. DE BLAINVILLE does not hesitate to express his astonishment that the Committee concluded the sea-serpent to be a real snake and an adult of their Scoliophis atlanticus, and ended his extract:

“If we will now scrutinize severely the existence of the Great Sea-Serpent, we must avow that it would be difficult to deny the appearance in the sea near Cape Anne; of an animal of very great length, very slender, and swimming with rapidity, but that it is a true snake, is doubtful; that it is of the same genus as the Scoliophis, is an assertion still more doubtful; and finally to hold that it is of the same species, reduces the number of probabilities which become null, if one is to believe that such an immense animal as that observed in the sea, goes ashore to lay its eggs!”