Pontoppidan remarks on the peculiarity of spouting water from the nostrils exhibited by the creature seen by Hans Egede, and states that he had not known it spoken of in any other instance. [Illustration: FIG. 69.--THE NORWEGIAN SEA-SERPENT. (_According to Pontoppidan._)] He also remarks that the Norway sea-snakes differ from the Greenland ones with regard to the skin, which in the former is as smooth as glass, and has not the least wrinkle, except about the neck, where there is a kind of mane, which looks like a parcel of sea-weeds hanging down to the water. Summarising the accounts which had reached him, he estimates the length at about one hundred fathoms or six hundred English feet. He states that it lies on the surface of the water (when it is very calm) in many folds, and that these are in a line with the head; some small parts of the back are to be seen above the surface of the water when it moves or bends, which at a distance appear like so many casks or hogsheads floating in a line, with a considerable distance between each of them. "The creature does not, like the eel or land-snake, taper gradually to a point, but the body, which looks to be as big as two hogsheads, grows remarkably small at once just where the tail begins. The head in all the kinds has a high and broad forehead, but in some a pointed snout, though in others that is flat, like that of a cow or horse, with large nostrils, and several stiff hairs standing out on each side like whiskers." "They add that the eyes of this creature are very large, and of a blue colour, and look like a couple of bright pewter plates. The whole animal is of a dark brown colour, but it is speckled and variegated with light streaks or spots that shine like tortoise-shell. It is of a darker hue about the eyes and mouth than elsewhere, and appears in that part a good deal like those horses which we call Moors-heads." He mentions two places, one at Amunds Vaagen in Nordfiord, the other at the island of Karmen, where carcases of it had been left at high water. He supposes it to be viviparous. In an account of the Laplanders of Finmark, by Knud Leems, with the notes of Gunner, Bishop of Drontheim, (Copenhagen, 1767, 4to., in Danish and Latin),[256] I find, "The Sea of Finmark also generates the snake or marine serpent, forty paces long, equalling in the size of the head the whale, in form the serpent. This monster has a maned neck, resembling a horse, a back of a grey colour, the belly inclining to white. "On the canicular days, when the sea is calm, the marine serpent usually comes up, winding into various spirals, of which some are above, the others below, the water. The seamen very much dread this monster. Nor while he is coming up do they easily entrust themselves to the dangers of the deep."