Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life

by Catherine Cooper Hopley

‘“HORATIO THOMPSON.
‘“WILLIAM LEWARN.

‘“And we make this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same to be true, and by virtue of the provisions of an Act made and passed in the sixth year of the reign of his late Majesty, intituled an Act to repeal an Act of the present session of Parliament, intituled an Act for the more effectual abolition of oaths and affirmations, taken and made in various departments of the State, and to substitute declarations in lieu thereof, and for the more entire suppression of voluntary and extra-judicial oaths and affidavits, and to make other provisions for the abolition of unnecessary oaths.

‘“GEORGE DREVAR, Master.
‘“WILLIAM LEWARN, Steward.
‘“HORATIO THOMPSON, Chief Officer.
‘“JOHN HENDERSON LANDELLS, Second Officer.
‘“OWEN BAKER.

In the above descriptions there is no mention of fins, flippers, or mane, but simply the manners of a huge constrictor, with the head and the tail free, and the middle portion of its body engaged in crushing the prey, a process which may at any time be seen in a captive constrictor seizing its food. The ‘whirling its victim’ was, no doubt, in the struggle between the two, the whale using its powerful efforts to escape, but being overcome at last. Nor in comparison with the size of the described serpent would a whale be impracticably large.

Again, in the next one seen, the true serpent motion is unintentionally exhibited in the ‘shooting itself along the surface, the head and neck being several feet out of water.’ Snakes continually advance with their heads elevated; and their rapid, darting movements are well expressed by ‘shooting.’

‘A few minutes after, it was seen elevated some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air.’ Sixty feet at a guess. Unless some mast, the precise height of which was known, or some other perpendicular object were in close proximity, it would be exceedingly difficult to estimate the height. To an unaccustomed eye even twenty or thirty feet of snake suddenly darting upright from the waves would be a startling and bewildering spectacle; yet we know that land snakes raise themselves in this manner one-third, one-half, or for a moment even more than that; ‘stand erect,’ some physiologists have stated (see p. 181); so again, unintentionally, and by those not likely to be familiar with ophidian capabilities, is a natural action described.

In several other instances, the animal seen has raised its head many feet, and ‘let it down suddenly;’ exactly what land snakes do.

The one seen from on board H.M.S. Dædalus in 1848 is considered one of the most circumstantially recorded evidences of some really existing serpentine animal within the memory of many still living. It was much commented upon in the journals of that year, and claims a passing mention here.

Captain M’Quhæ, who commanded the Dædalus, in an official report to the Admiralty, gave the date of the ‘monster’s’ appearance as August 6, 1848, and its exact locality in the afternoon of that day as lat. 24° 44’ S., and long. 9° 22’ E., which would be somewhere between the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena. In his own mind the captain had no doubt whatever as to the nature of the animal, which he simply reported as an ‘enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea; and as nearly as we could approximate, by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail yard would show in the water, there was, at the very least, sixty feet of the animal à fleur d’eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulations. There seemed to be as much as thirty to forty feet of tail as well.’ The animal passed the ship ‘rapidly, but so close under our lee-quarter, that, had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should easily have recognised his features with the naked eye.’ The size of the creature is given as about fifteen or sixteen inches diameter in the neck ‘behind the head, which was, without doubt, that of a snake.’ No fins were seen, but ‘something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed washing about its back.’ Its progress was about fifteen miles an hour, and it remained twenty minutes in sight.