The public are not likely to believe in the creature till it is caught, and that does not seem likely to happen just yet, for a variety of reasons, one reason being that it has, from all the accounts given of it, the power of moving very rapidly. On the 20th, while we were becalmed in the mouth of Lochourn, a steam-launch slowly passed us, and, as we watched it, we reckoned its rate at five or six miles an hour. When the animal rushed past us on the next day at about the same distance, and when we were again becalmed nearly in the same place, we agreed that it went twice as fast as the steamer, and we thought that its rate could not be less than ten or twelve miles an hour. It might be shot, but would probably sink. There are three accounts of its being shot at in Norway; in one instance it sank, and in the other two it pursued the boats, which were near the shore, but disappeared when it found itself getting into shallow water. It should be mentioned that when we saw this creature, and made our sketches of it, we had never seen either Pontoppidan's _Natural History_ or his print of the Norwegian sea-serpent, which has a most striking resemblance to the first of our own sketches. Considering the great body of reasonable Norwegian evidence, extending through a number of years, which remains after setting aside fables and exaggerations, it seems surprising that no naturalist of that country has ever applied himself to make out something about the animal. In the meantime, as the public will most probably be dubious about quickly giving credit to our account, the following explanations are open to them, all of which have been proposed to me, viz.:--porpoises, lumps of sea-weed, empty herring-barrels, bladders, logs of wood, waves of the sea, and inflated pig-skins! but as all these theories present to our mind greater difficulties than the existence of the animal itself, we feel obliged to decline them. The editor of the _Zoologist_ adds:-- I have long since expressed my firm conviction that there exists a large marine animal unknown to us naturalists; I maintain this belief as firmly as ever. I totally reject the evidence of published representations; but I do not allow these imaginary figures to interfere with a firm conviction.