. Three voyages of a naturalist, being an account of many little- known islands in three oceans visited by the "Valhalla," ; . ut 10 oclock in the morning,and I was leaning on the rail of the poop deck,when a large fin suddenly appeared close to theship at a distance of about fifty yards. This finresembled that of no fish I had previously seen,and I pointed it out immediately to Mr. E. G. , who was on deck with me at thetime, and we watched it together for severalminutes. As we passed slowly by, a long eel-likeneck surmounted by a head, shaped somewhatlike that of a turtle,
. Three voyages of a naturalist, being an account of many little- known islands in three oceans visited by the "Valhalla," ; . ut 10 oclock in the morning,and I was leaning on the rail of the poop deck,when a large fin suddenly appeared close to theship at a distance of about fifty yards. This finresembled that of no fish I had previously seen,and I pointed it out immediately to Mr. E. G. , who was on deck with me at thetime, and we watched it together for severalminutes. As we passed slowly by, a long eel-likeneck surmounted by a head, shaped somewhatlike that of a turtle, rose out of the water in frontof the fin. This creature remained in sight for afew minutes, but we soon drew ahead of it, and itbecame lost to view, owing to the ripple of thewater. Owing to the fact that we were under sailat the time, it was not possible to go about andmake a closer inspection, and with great regretwe had to be content with the view we had had ofthis remarkable monster. A fuU account of it was given at a meeting ofthe Zoological Society of London, on 19th June,1906, and I quote below from the report which was. PiO « oWHP M SO 1^ (4 g O ,^ !« ■4^ A a [z; !i| &. Ol ro <1 ^ a 24 VOYAGES OF A NATURALIST printed in the Proceedings of that Society(10th October, 1906, p. 721) :— At , on Thursday, 7th December,1905, when in lat. 7° 14 S., long. 34° 25 W., in adepth of from 322 to 1,340 fathoms, Meade-Waldoand I saw a most extraordinary creature about100 yards from the ship, and moving in the samedirection, but very much slower than we weregoing. At first aU that we could see was a dorsalfin, about four feet long, sticking up about two feetfrom the water ; this fin was of a brownish-blackcolour, and much resembled a gigantic piece ofribbon-seaweed. Below the water we could in-distinctly see a very large brownish-black patch,but could not make out the shape of the now and then the fin entirely disappearedbelow the water. Suddenly an e
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