Those who have honoured this book with attentive perusal thus far, will have become initiated in certain ophidian manners, actions, and appearances which would enable them at once to identify a snake were they to have a complete view of one. But to those who are not familiar with such peculiarities, and possess only a vague idea of the ophidian form, many a merely elongated outline at sea may be, and has been, set down as a ‘serpent,’ which on closer inspection, or by the light of science, has proved something entirely different. Ribbon-fish, strings of porpoises and other cetaceans, long lines of sea-birds on the surface of the waves, even logs of drifting wood or bamboo, with bunches of seaweed doing service as ‘manes’ or ‘fins,’ have in turn, and by the aid of the imagination, been dubbed ‘the sea serpent’ again and again. These may be dismissed by the mere mention of a few such as examples. For instance, in _Nature_, vol. xviii., 1878, Dr. Dean describes a reported ‘sea serpent,’ which resolved itself into a flight of birds. E. H. Pringle describes the serpentine appearance of a bamboo swaying up and down, which at a distance had deceived the beholders into the idea of the sea serpent; others explained that long lines of birds or of sea-weeds had again similarly deceived sailors. In _Land and Water_, Sept. 22, 1877, we read that the crew of the barque _Aberfoyle_, off the coast of Scotland, thought they really had got one this time, and approaching the ‘monster,’ lowered and manned a boat, and seized a harpoon to ‘catch’ the singularly passive creature, which proved to be a mass of ‘a sort of jelly-fish description,’ some of which they bottled and corked down air-tight; but, alas! it ‘deliquesced’! Again, in _Nature_, Feb. 10, 1881, an imaginary sea serpent seen from the _City of Baltimore_ (a ship in which the present writer crossed the Atlantic, though unfortunately not on that voyage) was pronounced to be a species of whale, the _Zeuglodontia_. One more out of scores of similar reports, which go to show that if some unknown marine animal of a longish form is caught, those who have anything to do with it immediately label it ‘the sea serpent.’ In _Land and Water_, Aug. 24, 1878, Mr. Frank Buckland published a communication from an Australian correspondent, regarding a ‘most remarkable fish,’ of nearly fifteen feet long, and eight inches in diameter at the thickest part. It has ‘no scales,’ but ‘a skin like polished silver,’ is of a tapering form, has a very queer mouth, a ‘mane’ on the neck, and ‘two feelers under the chin, thirty-two inches long.’ And this unsnake-like thing was taken to the Mechanics’ Institute of that town, and unhesitatingly. labelled ‘Sea Serpent!’ Dr. Buckland suggested that it was a ribbon fish. Thus, we may repeat that it is almost impossible for an unscientific person even to _see_, far less to describe, unfamiliar living forms in a manner that would prove sound data for zoologists to decide upon.