"'The latter end of August, in the year 1746, on my return from Trondhjem on a very calm and hot day, within six miles of Molde I heard a kind of murmuring voice from the men at the oars, and observed that the man at the helm kept off the land. I inquired what was the matter, and was told that there was a sea-snake before us. I then ordered the man at the helm to keep to the land again, and to come up with this sea-snake, of which I had heard so many stories; as the snake swum faster than we could row, I took my gun and fired at it; on this he immediately plunged into the water. We rowed to the place where it sunk down, thinking it would come to the surface; however, it would not. The head of this snake, which he held more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that of a horse. It was of a grayish color, and the mouth was quite black and very large; it had black eyes, and a long white mane that hung down from the neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head and neck we saw seven or eight coils or folds of the snake, which were very thick; and as far as we could guess, there was about a fathom distance between each fold.' [Illustration: CAPTAIN LAWRENCE DE FERRY'S SEA-SERPENT.] "Captain Little, of the United States Navy, in 1781, describes a snake he saw in broad day on the coast of Maine, in 1780. It was about forty or fifty feet long and fifteen inches in diameter, and he carried three or four feet of his length out of water. Captain Little ordered out his boat to pursue the snake, but they did not succeed in capturing him.