inety feet; it sank quietly beneath the surface, and was seen no
more.

"The person who was thus so lucky as to get this unobstructed view, is
one so little liable to be led astray by any imaginary impulse, that I
reckon on her statement with entirely as much confidence as if my own
eyes had demonstrated its truth."--_Grattan's Civilised America_, p. 39.

* * * * *

The second testimony is contained in the following communication with
which I have been favoured by Mr Cave:--

35, WILTON PLACE, _April 29, 1861_.

SIR,--On reading your interesting "Romance of Natural History" it
occurred to me that I could supply some corroborative evidence of the
existence of the sea serpent. On looking up my old journals, I found it
was slighter than I imagined; but, such as it is, I give it almost
verbatim from my diary.

I was in Jamaica the year after you were, and have often regretted that
we were not there together, as I might have shewn you parts of the
island which you missed, and have been, perhaps, the cause of a few more
pages to your very pleasant journal of a naturalist there.--Believe me,
faithfully, yours,

STEPHEN CAVE,
M.P. for Shoreham.

Philip H. Gosse, Esq.

_Extract from a Journal written during a Voyage to the West Indies in
1846._

_Thursday, Dec. 10._--Off Madeira, on board R.M.S. "Thames."--"Made
acquaintance with a Captain Christmas of the Danish navy, a proprietor
in Santa Cruz, and holding some office about the Danish Court. He told
me he once saw a sea-serpent between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. He
was lying-to in a gale of wind, in a frigate of which he had the
command, when an immense shoal of porpoises rushed by the ship, as if
pursued; and, lo and behold! a creature with a neck moving like that of
a swan, about the thickness of a man's waist, with a head like a horse,
raised itself slowly and gracefully from the deep, and seeing the ship
it immediately disappeared again, head foremost, like a duck diving. He
only saw it for a few seconds; the part above the water seemed about 18
feet in length. He is a singularly intelligent man, and by no means one
to allow his imagination to run away with him."

THE END.

INDEX.

AEpyornis, 38.

America, early condition of, 8, 32.

Ant-eaters, 9.

Antidotes to poison, 268, 272, 276, 298, 300.