108
THE SEAS
'
the other), long strings of weed, the giant Ribbon-sh,
<
_
and even a ight of birds in single le just above the
j
water.
_
There are real sea snakes, most poisonous inhabitants
of certain tropic seas ; but these se1dom reach a length of
more
than two or three yards, and although they are
indeed sea “
serpents,” they are not the sea serpents that
‘
we all hope it may be our lot one day to see.
There is,
:
however, every possibility that some beast worthy of all
_
7
that the name implies may still exist in the great depths of '
‘
the ocean.
When we imagine the vast space of the undersea
1 ‘
world, stretching for thousands of miles, north, south, east
.‘
and west, we realize that there are possibilities for the
existence
of many fearsome monsters ; creatures so powerful
-
__
as to evade all capture.
Of the many tales that have been
_told, most of which can be almost denitely shown to have
,
‘
arisen through mistaken identity, one at least is worthy of
.
mention;
'
.
_
In- 1906 two naturalists, Messrs. Meade—Waldo and Nicoll,
,
described in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society an
animal that they had seen while cruising on December 7th,
1905, in the Earl of Crawford’s yacht, the Valhalla, off the
'
'
coast “of Brazil.
They say:
“
At irst all that could be
seen was a dorsal nabout four feet long, sticking up
about
.
two feet from‘th‘e water ; this n was of a brownish-black
colour and much œsembled a gigantic piece of ribbon
sea— Weed.”, Behind the n under the water could just be
'
made out the form of a considérable body.
“
Suddenlÿ
'*
an‘eel-like neck about six feet long and of the thickness of a
_
,
man’s thigh, having a head shaped like that of a turtle,
appeared'in front of the n.”
Untortunately, this cuous
'
'
beast soon disappeared from view andall that may have
_
been seen of it again was on the next ight When an animal,
[
:
Which they
was
not a whale, was making such a
f