an animal belonging to the seal family (of a species unknown to him),
except the green hair. But the hour was not very favourable to the
discerning of colour, though daylight had not quite passed away, and as
Gosse points out, since golden-yellow fur and black fur are found among
Antarctic seals, the colours may be intermingled in some individuals,
producing an olive-green tint, which, by contrast with the reddish
skin, might be mistaken for a full green. Considering that the man had
been roused from sleep and was somewhat frightened, he would not be
likely to make very exact observations. It will be noticed that it was
only at first that he mistook the sounds made by the creature for human
cries; afterwards he heard only the same _noise_, but in a musical
strain. Now with regard to the musical sounds said to have been uttered
by this creature, and commonly attributed to creatures belonging to
families closely allied to the seals, I do not know that any attempt
has yet been made to show that these families possess the power of
emitting sounds which can properly be described as musical. It is quite
possible that the Romanist sailor’s ears were not very nice, and that
any sound softer than a bellow seemed musical to him. Still, the idea
suggests itself that possibly seals, like some other animals, possess a
note not commonly used, but only as a signal to their mates, and never
uttered when men or other animals are known to be near. It appears
to me that this is rendered probable by the circumstance that seals
are fond of music. Darwin refers to this in his treatise on Sexual
Selection (published with his “Descent of Man”), and quotes a statement
to the effect that the fondness of seals for music “was well known to
the ancients, and is often taken advantage of by hunters to the present
day.” The significance of this will be understood from Darwin’s remark
immediately following, that “with all these animals, the males of which
during the season of courtship incessantly produce musical notes or
mere rhythmical sounds, we must believe that the females are able to
appreciate them.”
The remark about the creature’s arms seems strongly to favour the
belief that the sailor intended his narrative to be strictly truthful.
Had he wished to excite the interest of his comrades by a marvellous
story, he certainly would have described the creature as having
well-developed human hands.
Less trustworthy by far seem some of the stories which have been told
of animals resembling the mermaid of antiquity. It must always be
remembered, however, that in all probability we know very few among the
species of seals and allied races, and that some of these species may
present, in certain respects and perhaps at a certain age, much closer
resemblance to the human form than the sea-lion, seal, manatee, or
dugong.
We cannot, for instance, attach much weight to the following story
related by Hudson, the famous navigator:—“One of our company, looking
overboard, saw a mermaid and calling up some of the company to see her,
one more came up, and by that time she was come close to the ship’s
side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after a sea came and
overturned her. From the navel upward her back and breasts were like a
woman’s, as they say that saw her; her body as big as one of us; her
skin very white; and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black. In
her going down they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a porpoise
and speckled like a mackerel.” If Hudson himself had seen and thus
described the creature it would have been possible to regard the story
with some degree of credence; but his account of what Thomas Hilles and
Robert Rayner, men about whose character for veracity we know nothing,
_said_ they saw, is of little weight. The skin very white, and long
hair hanging down behind, are especially suspicious features of the
narrative; and were probably introduced to dispose of the idea, which
others of the crew may have advanced, that the creature was only some
kind of seal after all. The female seal (_Phoca Greenlandica_ is the
pretty name of the animal) is not, however, like the male, tawny grey,
but dusky white, or yellowish straw-colour, with a tawny tint on the
back. The young alone could be called “very white.” They are so white
in fact as scarcely to be distinguishable when lying on ice and snow,
a circumstance which, as Darwin considers, serves as a protection for
these little fellows.
The following story, quoted by Gosse from Dr. Robert Hamilton’s able
“History of the Whales and Seals,” compares favourably in some respects
with the last narrative:—“It was reported that a fishing-boat off the
island of Yell, one of the Shetland group, had captured a mermaid by
its getting entangled in the lines! The statement is, that the animal
is about three feet long, the upper part of the body resembling the
human, with protuberant mammæ like a woman; the face, the forehead,
and neck, were short, and resembling those of a monkey; the arms,
which were small, were kept folded across the breast; the fingers were
distinct, not webbed; a few stiff long bristles were on the top of
the head, extending down to the shoulders, and these it could erect
and depress at pleasure, something like a crest. The inferior part of
the body was like a fish. The skin was smooth and of a grey colour.
It offered no resistance, nor attempted to bite, but uttered a low,
plaintive sound. The crew, six in number, took it within their boat;
but superstition getting the better of curiosity, they carefully
disentangled it from the lines and a hook which had accidentally
fastened in the body, and returned it to its native element. It
instantly dived, descending in a perpendicular direction.” “They had
the animal for three hours within the boat; the body was without scales
or hair; of a silvery grey colour above, and white below, like the
human skin; no gills were observed, nor fins on the back or belly. The
tail was like that of the dog-fish; the mammæ were about as large as
those of a woman; the mouth and lips were very distinct, and resembled
the human.”
This account, if accepted in all its details, would certainly indicate
that an animal of some species before unknown had been captured. But it
is doubtful how much reliance can be placed on the description of the
animal. Mr. Gosse, commenting upon the case, says that the fishermen
cannot have been affected by fear in such sort that their imagination
exaggerated the resemblance of the creature to the human form. “For the
mermaid,” he says, “is not an object of terror to the fishermen; it
is rather a welcome guest, and danger is to be apprehended only from
its experiencing bad treatment.” But then this creature had not been
treated as a specially welcome guest. The crew had captured it; and
probably not without some degree of violence; for though it offered
no resistance it uttered a plaintive cry. And that hook which “had
accidentally fastened in the body” has a very suspicious look. If the
animal could have given its own account of the capture, probably the
hook would not have been found to have fastened in the body altogether
by accident. Be this as it may, the fishermen were so far frightened
that superstition got the better of curiosity; so that, as they were
evidently very foolish fellows, their evidence is scarcely worth much.
There are, however, only two points in their narrative which do not
seem easily reconciled with the belief that they had captured a rather
young female of a species closely allied to the common seal—the
distinct unwebbed fingers and the small arms folded across the breast.
Other points in their description suggest marked differences in
degree from the usual characteristics of the female seal; but these
two alone seem to differ absolutely in kind. Considering all the
circumstances of the narrative, we may perhaps agree with Mr. Gosse to
this extent, that, combined with other statements, the story induces a
strong suspicion that the northern seas may hold forms of life as yet
uncatalogued by science.
The stories which have been related about monstrous cuttle-fish
have only been fabulous in regard to the dimensions which they have
attributed to these creatures. Even in this respect it has been shown,
quite recently, that some of the accounts formerly regarded as fabulous
fell even short of the truth. Pliny relates, for instance, that the
body of a monstrous cuttle-fish, of a kind known on the Spanish coast,
weighed, when captured, 700 lbs., the head the same, the arms being 30
feet in length. The entire weight would probably have amounted to about
2000 lbs. But we shall presently see that this weight has been largely
exceeded by modern specimens. It was, however, in the Middle Ages that
the really fabulous cuttle-fish flourished—the gigantic kraken, “liker
an island than an animal,” according to credulous Bishop Pontoppidan,
and able to destroy in its mighty arms the largest galleons and war
ships of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
It is natural that animals really monstrous should be magnified by the
fears of those who have seen or encountered them, and still further
magnified afterwards by tradition. Some specimens of cuttle-fish which
have been captured wholly, or in part, indicate that this creature
sometimes attains such dimensions that but little magnifying would
be needed to suggest even the tremendous proportions of the fabulous
kraken. In 1861, the French war-steamer _Alecton_ encountered a
monstrous cuttle, on the surface of the sea, about 120 miles north-east
of Teneriffe. The crew succeeded in slipping a noose round the body,
but unfortunately the rope slipped, and, being arrested by the tail
fin, pulled off the tail. This was hauled on board, and found to weigh
over 40 lbs. From a drawing of the animal, the total length without
the arms was estimated at 50 feet, and the weight at 4000 lbs., nearly
twice the weight of Pliny’s monstrous cuttle-fish, long regarded as
fabulous. In one respect this creature seems to have been imperfect,
the two long arms usually possessed by cuttle-fish of the kind being
wanting. Probably it had lost these long tentacles in a recent
encounter with some sea enemy, perhaps one of its own species. Quite
possibly it may have been such recent mutilation which exposed this
cuttle-fish to successful attack by the crew of the _Alecton_.
A cuttle-fish of about the same dimensions was encountered by two
fishermen in 1873, in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. When they attacked
it, the creature threw its long arms across the boat, but the fishermen
with an axe cut off these tentacles, on which the cephalopod withdrew
in some haste. One of the arms was preserved, after it had lost about
6 feet of its length. Even thus reduced it measured 19 feet; and as
the fishermen estimate that the arm was struck off about 10 feet from
the body, it follows that the entire length of the limb must have
been about 35 feet. They estimated the body at 60 feet in length and
5 feet in diameter—a monstrous creature! It was fortunate for these
fishermen that they had an axe handy for its obtrusive tentacles, as
with so great a mass and the great propulsive power possessed by all
cephalopods, it might readily have upset their small boat. Once in the
water, they would have been at the creature’s mercy—a quality which,
by all accounts, the cuttle-fish does not possess to any remarkable
extent.
Turn we, however, from the half fabulous woman-fish, and the
exaggeratedly monstrous cuttle-fish, to the famous sea-serpent, held
by many to be the most utterly fabulous of all fabled creatures, while
a few, including some naturalists of distinction, stoutly maintain
that the creature has a real existence, though whether it be rightly
called a sea-serpent or not is a point about which even believers are
extremely doubtful.
It may be well, in the first place, to remark that in weighing the
evidence for and against the existence of this creature, and bearing
on the question of its nature (if its existence be admitted), we ought
not to be influenced by the manifest falsity of a number of stories
relating to supposed encounters with this animal. It is probable
that, but for these absurd stories, the well-authenticated narratives
relating to the creature, whatever it may be, which has been called
the sea-serpent, would have received much more attention than has
heretofore been given to them. It is also possible that some narratives
would have been published which have been kept back from the fear
lest a truthful (though possibly mistaken) account should be classed
with the undoubted untruths which have been told respecting the great
sea-serpent. It cannot be denied that in the main the inventions and
hoaxes about the sea-serpent have come chiefly from American sources.
It is unfortunately supposed by too many of the less cultured sons of
America that (to use Mr. Gosse’s expression) “there is somewhat of wit
in gross exaggerations or hoaxing inventions.” Of course an American
gentleman—using the word “in that sense in which every man may be
a gentleman,” as Twemlow hath it—would as soon think of uttering a
base coin as a deliberate untruth or foolish hoax. But it is thought
clever, by not a few in America who know no better, to take any one in
by an invention. Some, perhaps but a small number, of the newspapers
set a specially bad example in this respect, giving room in their
columns for pretended discoveries in various departments of science,
elaborate accounts of newly discovered animals, living or extinct, and
other untruths which would be regarded as very disgraceful indeed by
English editors. Such was the famous “lunar hoax,” published in the
New York _Sun_ some forty years ago; such the narrative, in 1873, of a
monstrous fissure which had been discerned in the body of the moon, and
threatened to increase until the moon should be cloven into two unequal
parts; such the fables which have from time to time appeared respecting
the sea-serpent. But it would be as unreasonable to reject, because
of these last-named fables, the narratives which have been related by
quiet, truth-loving folk, and have borne close and careful scrutiny, as
it would be to reject the evidence given by the spectroscope respecting
the existence of iron and other metals in the sun because an absurd
story had told how creatures in the moon had been observed to make use
of metal utensils or to adorn the roofs of their temples with metallic
imitations of wreathed flames.
The oldest accounts on record of the appearance of a great sea creature
resembling a serpent are those quoted by Bishop Pontoppidan, in his
description of the natural history of his native country, Norway.
Amongst these was one confirmed by oath taken before a magistrate
by two of the crew of a ship commanded by Captain de Ferry, of the
Norwegian navy. The captain and eight men saw the animal, near Molde,
in August, 1747. They described it as of the general form of a serpent,
stretched on the surface in receding coils (meaning, probably, the
shape assumed by the neck of a swan when the head is drawn back). The
head, which resembled that of a horse, was raised two feet above the
water.
In August, 1817, a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, was
seen near Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Eleven witnesses of good reputation
gave evidence on oath before magistrates. One of these magistrates had
himself seen the creature, and corroborated the most important points
of the evidence given by the eleven witnesses. The creature had the
appearance of a serpent, dark brown in colour (some said mottled),
with white under the head and neck. Its length was estimated at from
50 to 100 feet. The head was in shape like a serpent’s, but as large
as a horse’s. No mane was noticed. Five of the witnesses deposed
to protuberances on the back; four said the back was straight; the
other two gave no opinion on this point. The magistrate who had seen
the animal considered the appearance of protuberances was due to the
bendings of the body while in rapid motion.
In 1848, when the captain of the British frigate _Dædalus_ had
published an account of a similar animal seen by him and several of his
officers and crew, the Hon. Colonel T. H. Perkins, of Boston, who had
seen the animal on the occasion just mentioned in 1817, gave an account
(copied from a letter written in 1820) of what he had witnessed. It
is needless to quote those points which correspond with what has
been already stated. Colonel Perkins noticed “an appearance in the
front of the head like a single horn, about nine inches to a foot in
length, shaped like a marlinspike, which will presently be explained.
I left the place,” he proceeds, “fully satisfied that the reports in
circulation, though differing in details, were essentially correct.”
He relates how a person named Mansfield, “one of the most respectable
inhabitants of the town, who had been such an unbeliever in the
existence of this monster that he had not given himself the trouble to
go from his house to the harbour when the report was first made,” saw
the animal from a bank overlooking the harbour. Mr. Mansfield and his
wife agreed in estimating the creature’s length at 100 feet. Several
crews of coasting vessels saw the animal, _in some instances within a
few yards_. “Captain Tappan,” proceeds Colonel Perkins, “a person well
known to me, saw him with his head above water two or three feet, at
times moving with great rapidity, at others slowly. He also saw what
explained the appearance which I have described of a horn on the front
of the head. This was doubtless what was observed by Captain Tappan to
be the tongue, thrown in an upright position from the mouth, and having
the appearance which I have given to it. One of the revenue cutters,
whilst in the neighbourhood of Cape Ann, had an excellent view of him
at a few yards’ distance; he moved slowly, and upon the appearance of
the vessel sank and was seen no more.”
Fifteen years later, in May 1833, five British officers—Captain
Sullivan, Lieutenants Maclachlan and Malcolm of the Rifle Brigade,
Lieutenant Lyster of the Artillery, and Mr. Snee of the Ordnance—when
cruising in a small yacht off Margaret’s Bay, not far from Halifax,
“saw the head and neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like
those of a common snake, in the act of swimming, the head so elevated
and thrown forward by the curve of the neck as to enable us to see
the water under and beyond it.” They judged its length to exceed
80 feet. “There could be no mistake nor delusion, and we were all
perfectly satisfied that we had been favoured with a view of the ‘true
and veritable sea-serpent,’ which had been generally considered to
have existed only in the brain of some Yankee skipper, and treated
as a tale not entitled to belief.” Dowling, a man-of-war’s man they
had along with them, made the following unscientific but noteworthy
comment: “Well, I’ve sailed in all parts of the world, and have seen
rum sights too in my time, but this is the queerest thing I ever
see.” “And surely,” adds Captain Sullivan, “Jack Dowling was right.”
The description of the animal agrees in all essential respects with
previous accounts, but the head was estimated at about six feet in
length—considerably larger, therefore, than a horse’s head.
But unquestionably the account of the sea-serpent which has commanded
most attention was that given by the captain, officers, and crew of
the British frigate _Dædalus_, Captain M’Quhæ, in 1848. The _Times_
published on October 9, 1848, a paragraph stating that the sea-serpent
had been seen by the captain and most of the officers and crew of this
ship, on her passage home from the East Indies. The Admiralty inquired
at once into the truth of the statement, and the following is abridged
from Captain M’Quhæ’s official reply, addressed to Admiral Sir W. H.
Gage.
“Sir,—In reply to your letter, requiring information as to the truth
of a statement published in the _Times_ newspaper, of a sea-serpent of
extraordinary dimensions having been seen from the _Dædalus_, I have
the honour to inform you that at 5 p.m., August 6 last, in latitude 24°
44´ S., longitude 9° 22´ E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh
from N.W., with long ocean swell from S.W., the ship on the port tack,
heading N.E. by N., Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, reported to Lieutenant
E. Drummond (with whom, and Mr. W. Barrett, the master, I was walking
the quarter-deck) something very unusual rapidly approaching the ship
from before the beam. The object was seen to be an enormous serpent,
with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the
surface of the sea, as nearly as we could judge; at least 60 feet of
the animal was on the surface, no part of which length was used, so
far as we could see, in propelling the animal either by vertical or
horizontal undulation. It passed quietly, _but so closely under our lee
quarter that, had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should easily
have recognized his features with the naked eye_. It did not, while
visible, deviate from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the
pace of from 12 to 15 miles per hour, as if on some determined purpose.
The diameter of the serpent was from 15 to 16 inches behind the head,
which was, without any doubt, that of a snake. Its colour was a dark
brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It did not once, while
within the range of view from our glasses, sink below the surface. It
had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch
of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quarter-master,
the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself
and the officers above-mentioned. I am having a drawing of the serpent
made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to
have ready for my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s
post.—Peter M’Quhæ, Captain.”
The drawing here mentioned was published in the _Illustrated London
News_ for October 28, 1848, being there described as made “under the
supervision of Captain M’Quhæ, and his approval of the authenticity of
the details as to position and form.”
The correspondence and controversy elicited by the statement of Captain
M’Quhæ were exceedingly interesting. It is noteworthy, at the outset,
that few, perhaps none, who had read the original statement, suggested
the idea of illusion, while it need hardly perhaps be said that no one
expressed the slightest doubt as to the _bona fides_ of Captain M’Quhæ
and his fellow-witnesses. These points deserve attention, because,
in recent times, the subject of the sea-serpent has been frequently
mentioned in public journals and elsewhere as though no accounts of
the creature had ever been given which had been entitled to credence.
I proceed to summarise the correspondence which followed M’Quhæ’s
announcement. The full particulars will be found in Mr. Gosse’s
interesting work, the “Romance of Natural History,” where, however, as
it seems to me, the full force of the evidence is a little weakened,
for all save naturalists, by the introduction of particulars not
bearing directly on the questions at issue.
Among the earliest communications was one from Mr. J. D. M. Stirling,
a gentleman who, during a long residence in Norway, had heard repeated
accounts of the sea-serpent in Norwegian seas, and had himself seen a
fish or reptile at a distance of a quarter of a mile, which, examined
through a telescope, corresponded in appearance with the sea-serpent as
usually described. This communication was chiefly interesting, however,
as advancing the theory that the supposed sea-serpent is not a serpent
at all, but a long-necked plesiosaurian. This idea had been advanced
earlier, but without his knowledge, by Mr. E. Newman, the editor of
the _Zoologist_. Let us briefly inquire into the circumstances which
suggest the belief.