A master in science, Professor Richard Owen, now appeared upon the field, and in a most able article in the _Times_, November 11, 1848, gave his verdict against the serpentine character of the animal, and pronounced it to have been, in his judgment, a seal. He argued this partly from the description of its appearance, and partly from the fact that no remains of any dead marine serpent had ever been found. He says: “On weighing the question whether creatures meriting the name of ‘great sea serpent’ do exist, or whether any of the gigantic marine saurians of the secondary deposits may have continued to live up to the present time, it seems to me less probable that no part of the carcase of such reptiles should have ever been discovered in a recent or unfossilised state, than that men should have been deceived by a cursory view of a partly submerged and rapidly moving animal, which might only be strange to themselves. In other words, I regard the negative evidence from the utter absence of any of the recent remains of great sea serpents, Krakens, or Enaliosauria, as stronger against their actual existence than the positive statements which have hitherto weighed with the public mind in favour of their existence. A larger body of evidence from eye‐witnesses might be got together in proof of ghosts than of the sea serpent.” However, Captain M‘Quhæ gallantly returned to the charge, and combated the idea that he had mistaken one of the _Phoca_ species for a snake; and he was strongly corroborated by Mr. R. Davidson, Superintending Surgeon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, in a letter from Kamptee, published in the _Bombay Bi‐monthly Times_, for January, 1849. This gentleman says that an animal, “of which no more generally correct description could be given than that by Captain M‘Quhæ,” passed within thirty‐five yards of the ship _Royal Saxon_ while he and its commander, Captain Petrie, were standing on the poop, when they were returning to India in 1829. Again, a letter was printed in the _Zoologist_ for 1852, communicated by Captain Steele, 9th Lancers, to his brother, Lieutenant‐Colonel Steele of the Coldstream Guards, stating that while on his way to India in the _Bartram_ he and _every one on board_ saw “the head and neck of an enormous snake.” This was corroborated in a letter from one of the officers of the ship, who says:—“His head appeared to be about sixteen feet above the water, and he kept moving it up and down, sometimes showing his enormous neck, which was surmounted with a huge crest in the shape of a saw.” Another theory was put forward in the London _Sun_ of the 9th July, 1849, by Captain Herriman, of the British ship _Brazilian_, who, on the 24th February, 1849, was becalmed on almost the same spot that Captain M‘Quhæ saw his monster while on a voyage from the Cape of Good Hope.