Research source

I have not had the opportunity of consulting this work, but the passage about the sea-serpent runs m

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 191
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

The sharks, however, which are also cartilaginous fishes without bones, have such a backbone, but it is very subtile and even in the largest sharks only ten ells long

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

The sharks, however, which are also cartilaginous fishes without bones, have such a backbone, but it is very subtile and even in the largest sharks only ten ells long. The sea-serpent, like sharks, eels and whales also seems to be a viviparous, not an oviparous fish, and most probably it seeks the other sex in the above mentioned season. It is said, that when this animal is ruttish, it looks after ships and boats, which it probably takes for something else. If this be true, as seamen say, those are wrong who think that the sea-serpent is not born in the sea, but on land, and lives in forests and among mountains, till it can no longer hide its body in it; it is said that it then seeks some river, and floats out to the sea, as some people pretend to have seen.”

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This 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 only

Lattice 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.