OWEN attempted to confound this leviathan with the seals, on which he probably feeds, taking in whole shoals of…
- Date of account
- Late nineteenth-century survey
- Source
- The great sea-serpent: an historical and critical treatise
- Reference
- The great sea-serpent: an historical and critical treatise · selected passage 67
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English edition of a European scholarly compilation
- Translation
- English edition of A. C. Oudemans's historical survey
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
OWEN attempted to confound this leviathan with the seals, on which he probably feeds, taking in whole shoals of them at a mouthful, and draining of the water with his seaserpentbone apparatus in the manner of a whale filling his stomach with medusae and shrimps: ever since the promulgation of this humilating hypothesis…
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention only“Ever since Prof. OWEN attempted to confound this leviathan with the seals, on which he probably feeds, taking in whole shoals of them at a mouthful, and draining of the water with his _seaserpentbone_ apparatus in the manner of a whale filling his stomach with medusae and shrimps: ever since the promulgation of this humilating hypothesis, the great sea-serpent has felt himself snubbed and has doggedly kept in deep water, pertinatiously resolved, no doubt, to withhold himself in future from the incredulous malevolence of men. But he has relented: the recurrence of St. Valentine has warmed his heart: he has once more risen to the surface, and has wisely concluded to shun the disparaging Britishers, and to select, as of yore, for the scene of his auto-exhibition, the shores of a nation, at once the smartest and most credulous on earth. The papers of the United States are fraught with intelligence respecting him; cannon have been discharged, and reports say that he is actually ashore.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical compilation of unusual-animal reports and argument. Witness testimony, repetition between publications and the author's zoological assumptions all affect independence and reliability.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares morphology, behaviour and setting while keeping misidentification, folklore, exaggeration, error and known animals available as alternatives.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.