Lieutenant Drummond, also of the Dædalus, reported what he saw, and from his log-book, while the captain’s was from memory. The lieutenant thought he saw ‘a back fin ten feet long, and also a tail fin.’ The head was ‘rather raised, and occasionally dipping, and gave him the idea of that of a large eel.’
Without being an ophiologist, Captain M’Quhæ also unintentionally describes a creature of ophidian habits and proportions. He inadvertently says ‘shoulders,’ when, as my readers know, a snake has anatomically no shoulders, any more than ‘neck.’ But for all that, the raised head, and the absence of any striking movements in the part visible, are the manners of a serpent in the water, when propelled by its tail, which would be out of sight; and the captain simply describing what he saw, but giving no name, those acquainted with herpetology would at once decide that he described a long-necked and slender reptile of some sort, perhaps some enormous saurian, whose feet were under water, if not a serpent.
There were many learned discussions concerning this creature, and for these I refer my reader to the journals and scientific publications of the time. No one doubted the fact that some strange animal was seen, but the wisest refrained from giving it a name. Very similar was the verdict on the more recent object seen from the Osborne in 1877; but in those thirty intervening years a vast stride had been made in zoological knowledge; and in the very able papers written on this later phenomenon, we now find a general disposition to accept the fact that there are gigantic forms of marine animals existing, that have not as yet been scientifically described and received into systematic zoology.
Mr. A. D. Bartlett, in the discussion already alluded to, after dispassionately reviewing and criticizing the evidence of H.M.’s officers, thus concludes:—
‘When we consider the vast extent of the ocean, its great depth, the rocky, cavernous nature of the bottom,—of many parts of which we know really nothing,—who can say what may be hidden for ages, and may still remain a mystery for generations yet to come; for we have evidence on land that there exists some of the largest mammals, probably by thousands, of which only one solitary individual has been caught or brought to notice. I allude to the Hairy-eared Two-horned Rhinoceros (R. lasiotis), captured in 1868 at Chittagong (where it was found stranded in the mud), and now known as an inhabitant of the Zoological Gardens.
‘This animal remains unique, and no part or portion was previously known to exist in any museum at home or abroad.
‘(We have here an instance of the existence of a species found on the continent of India, where for many years collectors and naturalists have worked and published lists of all the animals met with, and have hitherto failed to meet with or obtain any knowledge of this great beast.)
‘May I not therefore presume that in the vast and mighty ocean, animals, perhaps of nocturnal habits (and therefore never, except by some extraordinary accident, forced into sight), may exist, whose form may resemble the extinct reptiles whose fossil remains we find in such abundance.
‘As far as I am able to judge from the evidence before me, I have reason to believe that aquatic reptiles of vast size have been seen and described by those persons who have endeavoured to explain what they have witnessed.
‘One thing is certain, that many well-known reptiles have the power of remaining for long periods (months, in fact) at the bottom, under water or imbedded in soft mud, being so provided with organs of circulation and respiration that they need not come to the surface to breathe. The large crocodiles, alligators, and turtles have this power, and I see no valid reason to doubt but that there may and do exist in the unknown regions of the ocean, creatures so constructed.