SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED

PREFACE.


As I commence this little history of two sea monsters there comes to my
mind a remark made to me by my friend, Mr. Samuel L. Clemens--"Mark
Twain"--which illustrates a feeling that many a writer must have
experienced when dealing with a subject that has been previously well
handled. Expressing to me one day the gratification he felt in having
made many pleasant acquaintances in England, he added, with dry humour,
and a grave countenance, "Yes! I owe your countrymen no grudge or
ill-will. I freely forgive them, though one of them did me a grievous
wrong, an irreparable injury! It was Shakspeare: if he had not written
those plays of his, I should have done so! They contain _my_ thoughts,
_my_ sentiments! He forestalled me!"

In treating of the so-called "sea-serpent," I have been anticipated by
many able writers. Mr. Gosse, in his delightful book, 'The Romance of
Natural History,' published in 1862, devoted a chapter to it; and
numerous articles concerning it have appeared in various papers and
periodicals.

But, for the information from which those authors have drawn their
inferences, and on which they have founded their opinions, they have
been greatly indebted, as must be all who have seriously to consider
this subject, to the late experienced editor of the _Zoologist_, Mr.
Edward Newman, a man of wonderful power of mind, of great judgment, a
profound thinker, and an able writer. At a time when, as he said, "the
shafts of ridicule were launched against believers and unbelievers in
the sea-serpent in a very pleasing and impartial manner," he, in the
true spirit of philosophical inquiry, in 1847, opened the columns of his
magazine to correspondence on this topic, and all the more recent
reports of marine monsters having been seen are therein recorded. To
him, therefore, the fullest acknowledgments are due.

The great cuttles, also, have been the subject of articles in various
magazines, notably one by Mr. W. Saville Kent, F.L.S., in the 'Popular
Science Review' of April, 1874, and a chapter in my little book on the
Octopus, published in 1873, is also devoted to them. In writing of them
as the living representatives of the kraken, and as having been
frequently mistaken for the "sea-serpent," my deductions have been drawn
from personal knowledge, and an intimate acquaintance with the habits,
form, and structure of the animals described. It was only by watching
the movements of specimens of the "common squid" (_Loligo vulgaris_),
and the "little squid" (_L. media_), which lived in the tanks of the
Brighton Aquarium, that I recognised in their peculiar habit of
occasionally swimming half-submerged, with uplifted caudal extremity,
and trailing arms, the fact that I had before me the "sea-serpent" of
many a well-authenticated anecdote. A mere knowledge of their form and
anatomy after death had never suggested to me that which became at once
apparent when I saw them in life.

It is a pleasure to me to acknowledge gratefully the kindness I have
met with in connection with the illustrations of this book. The
proprietors of the _Illustrated London News_ not only gave me permission
to copy, in reduced size, their two pictures of the _Dædalus_ incident,
but presented to me electrotype copies of all others small enough for
these pages--namely, "Jonah and the Monster," Egede's "Sea-Serpent," and
the Whale as seen from the _Pauline_. Equally kind have been the
proprietors of the _Field_. To them I am greatly indebted for their
permission to copy the beautiful woodcuts of the "Octopus at Rest," "The
Sepia seizing its Prey," and the arms of the Newfoundland squids, and
also for "electros" of the two curious Japanese engravings, all of which
originally appeared in their paper. From the _Graphic_ I have had
similar permission to copy any cuts that might be thought suitable, and
the illustrations of the sea-serpent, as seen from Her Majesty's yacht
_Osborne_ and the _City of Baltimore_, are from that journal. Messrs.
Nisbet most courteously allowed me to have a copy of the block of the
_Enaliosaurus_ swimming, which was one of the numerous pictures in Mr.
Gosse's book, published by them, already referred to. And last, not
least, I have to thank Miss Ellen Woodward, daughter of my friend, Dr.
Henry Woodward, F.R.S., for enabling me to better explain the movements
and appearances of the squids when swimming, and when raising their
bodies out of water in an erect position, by carefully drawing them from
my rough sketches.

HENRY LEE.

SAVAGE CLUB;
_July 21st, 1883_.