_Frontispiece._--The Sea Serpent as first seen from H.M.S. _Dædalus_.
4. Hooked Tentacles of _Onychoteuthis_ 23
5. Japanese fisherman attacked by a Cuttle 29
6. Arms of a great Cuttle exhibited in a Japanese fish-shop 29
7. Facsimile of De Montfort's "_Poulpe colossal_" 32
8. Gigantic Calamary caught by the French despatch vessel _Alecton_, near Teneriffe 39
9. Tentacle of a great Calamary (_Architeuthis princeps_) taken in Conception Bay, Newfoundland 43
10. Head and Tentacles of a great Calamary (_Architeuthis princeps_) taken in Logie Bay, Newfoundland 44
12. Sea Serpent seizing a man on board ship 58
13. Gigantic Lobster dragging a man from a ship 58
15. The Animal drawn by Mr. Bing as having been seen by Egede 66
16. The Animal which Egede probably saw 67
17. The Sea Serpent of the Wernerian Society (_facsimile_) 69
18. A Calamary swimming at the surface of the sea 77
19. The Sea Serpent passing under the quarter of H.M.S. _Dædalus_ 81
20. The Sea Serpent and Sperm Whale as seen from the _Pauline_ 91
21. The Sea Serpent as seen from the _City of Baltimore_ 93
22. The Sea Serpent as seen from H.M. yacht _Osborne_. Phase 1 94
23. The Sea Serpent as seen from H.M. yacht _Osborne_. Phase 2 94
24. Skeleton of the _Plesiosaurus_, restored by Mr. Conybeare 98
25. The Sea Serpent on the Enaliosaurian hypothesis 100
In the legends and traditions of northern nations, stories of the existence of a marine animal of such enormous size that it more resembled an island than an organised being frequently found a place. It is thus described in an ancient manuscript (about A.D. 1180), attributed to the Norwegian King Sverre; and the belief in it has been alluded to by other Scandinavian writers from an early period to the present day. It was an obscure and mysterious sea-monster, known as the Kraken, whose form and nature were imperfectly understood, and it was peculiarly the object of popular wonder and superstitious dread.
Eric Pontoppidan, the younger, Bishop of Bergen, and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen, is generally, but unjustly, regarded as the inventor of the semi-fabulous Kraken, and is constantly misquoted by authors who have never read his work,[1] and who, one after another, have copied from their predecessors erroneous statements concerning him. More than half a century before him, Christian Francis Paullinus,[2] a physician and naturalist of Eisenach, who evinced in his writings an admiration of the marvellous rather than of the useful, had described as resembling Gesner's 'Heracleoticon,' a monstrous animal which occasionally rose from the sea on the coasts of Lapland and Finmark, and which was of such enormous dimensions, that a regiment of soldiers could conveniently manoeuvre on its back. About the same date, but a little earlier, Bartholinus, a learned Dane, told how, on a certain occasion, the Bishop of Midaros found the Kraken quietly reposing on the shore, and mistaking the enormous creature for a huge rock, erected an altar upon it and performed mass. The Kraken respectfully waited till the ceremony was concluded, and the reverend prelate safe on shore, and then sank beneath the waves.