"The form and habits of the recently recognised gigantic cuttles account for so many appearances which, without knowledge of them, were inexplicable when Mr. Gosse and Mr. Newman wrote, that I think this theory is not forced upon us. Mr. Gosse well and clearly sums up the evidence as follows: 'Carefully comparing the independent narratives of English witnesses of known character and position, most of them being officers under the Crown, we have a creature possessing the following characteristics: (1) The general form of a serpent; (2) great length, say above sixty feet; (3) head considered to resemble that of a serpent; (4) neck from twelve to sixteen inches in diameter; (5) appendages on the head, neck, or back, resembling a crest or mane (considerable discrepancy in details); (6) colour, dark brown or green, streaked or spotted with white; (7) swims at surface of the water with a rapid or slow movement, the head and neck projected and elevated above the surface; (8) progression steady and uniform, the body straight, but capable of being thrown into convolutions; (9) spouts in the manner of a whale; (10) like a long "nun-buoy."' He concludes with the question, 'To which of the recognised classes of created beings can this huge rover of the ocean be referred?' "I reply, 'to the Cephalopoda.' There is not one of the above judiciously summarised characteristics that is not supplied by the great Calamary, and its ascertained habits and peculiar mode of locomotion. "Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the balance of probability is contrary to the supposition that any of the gigantic marine Saurians of the secondary deposits should have continued to live up to the present time. And yet I am bound to say that this does not amount to an impossibility, for the evidence against it is entirely negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be in existence some congeners of these great reptiles inconsistent with zoological science. Dr. J. E. Gray, late of the British Museum, a strict zoologist, is cited by Mr. Gosse as having long ago expressed his opinion that some undescribed form exists which is intermediate between the tortoises and the serpents." (This is quoted by Mr. Lee in a footnote.) "Professor Agassiz, too, is adduced by a correspondent of the _Zoologist_ (p. 2395), as having said concerning the present existence of the Enaliosaurian type, that 'it would be in precise conformity with analogy that such an animal should exist in the American seas, as he had found numerous instances in which the fossil forms of the old world were represented by living types in the new.' "On this point, Mr. Newman records in the _Zoologist_ (p 2356), an actual testimony which he considers 'in all respects the most interesting natural history fact of the present century.' He writes--