=The Sea-serpent.=--A myth of especial persistency is that of the sea-serpent. Most of the stories of this creature are seaman's yarns, sometimes based on a fragment of wreck, a long strip of kelp, the power of suggestion or the incitement of alcohol. But certain of these tales relate to real fishes. The sea-serpent with an uprearing red mane like that of a horse is the oarfish (_Regalecus_), a long, slender, fragile fish compressed like a ribbon and reaching a length of 25 feet. We here present a photograph of an oarfish (_Regalecus russelli_) stranded on the California coast at Newport in Orange County, California. A figure of a European species (_Regalecus glesne_) is also given showing the fish in its uninjured condition. Another reputed sea-serpent is the frilled shark (_Chlamydoselachus angineus_), which has been occasionally noticed by seamen. The struggles of the great killer (_Orca orca_) with the whales it attacks and destroys has also given rise to stories of the whale struggling in the embrace of some huge sea-monster. This description is correct, but the mammal is a monster itself, a relative of the whale and not a reptile. [Illustration: FIG. 236.--Oarfish, _Regalecus russelli_, on the beach at Newport, Orange Co., Cal. (Photograph by C. P. Remsberg.)] [Illustration: FIG. 237.--Glesnæs Oarfish, _Regalecus glesne_ Ascanius. Newcastle, England. (After Day.)] It is often hard to account for some of the stories of the sea-serpent. A gentleman of unquestioned intelligence and sincerity lately described to the writer a sea-serpent he had seen at short range, 100 feet long, swimming at the surface, and with a head as large as a barrel. I do not know what he saw, but I do know that memory sometimes plays strange freaks. Little venomous snakes with flattened tails (_Platyurus, Pelamis_) are found in the salt bays in many tropical regions of the Pacific (Gulf of California, Panama, East Indies, Japan), but these are not the conventional sea-serpents. Certain slender fishes, as the thread-eel (_Nemichthys_) and the wolf-eel (_Anarrhichthys_), have been brought to naturalists as young sea-serpents, but these of course are genuine fishes. Whatever the nature of the sea-serpent may be, this much is certain, that while many may be seen, none will ever be caught. The great swimming reptiles of the sea vanished at the end of Mesozoic time, and as living creatures will never be known of man. As a record of the Mythology of Science, we may add the following remarks of Rafinesque on the imaginary garpike (_Litholepis adamantinus_), of which a specimen was painted for him by the wonderful brush of Audubon: