By way of conclusion to these remarks we may briefly summarise the chief facts presented by "sea-serpent tales" as they appear under the light of scientific criticism. There is, it must firstly be remarked, nothing in the slightest degree improbable in the idea that an ordinary species of sea-snake, belonging to a well-known group of reptiles, may undergo a gigantic development and appear as a monster serpent of the deep. The experience of comparative anatomists is decidedly in agreement with such an opinion. Largely developed individuals of almost every species of animals and plants occasionally occur. Within the past few years new species of cuttle-fishes--of dimensions compared with which the largest of hitherto known forms are mere pigmies--have been brought to light. And if huge cuttle-fishes may thus be developed, why, it may be asked, may not sea-snakes of ordinary size be elevated, through extraordinary development, to become veritable "leviathans" of the deep? That there is a strong reason for belief in the veracity of sea-serpent tales, is supported by the consideration of the utter want of any motive for prevarication, and by the very different and varied accounts given of the monsters seen. That the appearances cannot always be explained on the supposition that lifeless objects, such as trees, sea-weed, &c., have been seen, is equally evident from the detailed nature of many of the accounts of the animals, which have been inspected from a near distance. And it may also be remarked that in some cases, in which largely developed sea-snakes themselves may not have appeared, certain fishes may have represented the reptilian inhabitants of the ocean. As Dr. Andrew Wilson has insisted, a giant tape-fish viewed from a distance would personate a "sea-serpent" in a very successful manner; and there can be no doubt that tape-fishes have occasionally been described as "sea-serpents." On the whole, if we admit the probability of giant-developments of ordinary species of sea-snakes, or the existence (and why not?) of enormous species of sea-snakes and certain fishes _as yet unknown to science_, the solution of the sea-serpent problem is not likely to be any longer a matter of difficulty.* * Since writing the above, the _Daily News_, of September, 1878, reported the appearance of the serpent, "twenty metres long and two-thirds of a metre in diameter," off Aalesund, on the coast of Norway. MILITARY "FOLK LORE." CHAPTER I. THE RED COAT; A FEW NOTES CONCERNING ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY. "_Red_, of the colour of blood, one of the primitive colours," we are told by Walker; "red-coat, a name of contempt for a soldier," he adds unpleasantly below; but Colonel James in his Military Dictionary renders it more probably, as "the familiar term for a British soldier."