Sea Monsters Unmasked, and Sea Fables Explained

( International Fisheries Exhibition LONDON, 1883)
BY HENRY LEE, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.
SOMETIME NATURALIST OF THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM AND AUTHOR OF 'THE OCTOPUS, OR THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND FACT'
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION AND 13 CHARING CROSS, S.W. 1883

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.