‘“GEORGE DREVAR, _Master_. ‘“WILLIAM LEWARN, _Steward_. ‘“HORATIO THOMPSON, _Chief Officer_. ‘“JOHN HENDERSON LANDELLS, _Second Officer_. ‘“OWEN BAKER. ‘“Severally declared and subscribed at Liverpool aforesaid, the tenth day of January, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, before T. S. Raffles, J.P. for Liverpool.”’ In the above descriptions there is no mention of fins, flippers, or mane, but simply the manners of a huge constrictor, with the head and the tail free, and the middle portion of its body engaged in crushing the prey, a process which may at any time be seen in a captive constrictor seizing its food. The ‘whirling its victim’ was, no doubt, in the struggle between the two, the whale using its powerful efforts to escape, but being overcome at last. Nor in comparison with the size of the described serpent would a whale be impracticably large. Again, in the next one seen, the true serpent motion is unintentionally exhibited in the ‘shooting itself along the surface, the head and neck being several feet out of water.’ Snakes continually advance with their heads elevated; and their rapid, darting movements are well expressed by ‘shooting.’ ‘A few minutes after, it was seen elevated some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air.’ _Sixty feet_ at a guess. Unless some mast, the precise height of which was known, or some other perpendicular object were in close proximity, it would be exceedingly difficult to estimate the height. To an unaccustomed eye even twenty or thirty feet of snake suddenly darting upright from the waves would be a startling and bewildering spectacle; yet we know that land snakes raise themselves in this manner one-third, one-half, or for a moment even more than that; ‘stand erect,’ some physiologists have stated (see p. 181); so again, unintentionally, and by those not likely to be familiar with ophidian capabilities, is a natural action described. In several other instances, the animal seen has raised its head many feet, and ‘let it down suddenly;’ exactly what land snakes do. The one seen from on board H.M.S. _Dædalus_ in 1848 is considered one of the most circumstantially recorded evidences of some really existing serpentine animal within the memory of many still living. It was much commented upon in the journals of that year, and claims a passing mention here.