RESEARCH ARTICLE

Ethnobiology and Conservation 2019, 8:12 (12 October 2019) doi:10.15451/ec2019-10-8.12-1-31 ISSN 2238­4782 ethnobioconservation.com Ethnobiology and Shifting Baselines: An Example Reinterpreting the British Isles’ Most Detailed Account of a Sea Serpent Sighting as Early Evidence for Pre­Plastic Entanglement of Basking Sharks Robert L. France

ABSTRACT

Recognizing shifts in baseline conditions is necessary for understanding long­term changes in populations as a prelude to implementing present­day management actions and setting future restoration goals for anthropogenically­altered marine ecosystems. Examining historical information contained within anecdotal accounts from non­traditional sources has previously proven useful in this regard. Herein, I scrutinize eyewitness accounts and accompanying illustrations published in nineteenth­century natural history journals which together comprise the most detailed description of sighting a purported sea serpent in the British Isles. I then reinterpret this anecdote (as well as complementary evidence offered by cryptozooloogists in its support obtained from other published journal articles of similarly described unidentified marine objects), suggesting it to provide one of the earliest reports of the non­lethal entanglement of an animal—in this case what I believe to have been a basking shark—in European waters. The present work suggests that the entanglement of sharks in fishing gear or hunting equipment has a much longer environmental history than is commonly believed, and provides another example of how ethnozoological studies can contribute toward recognizing past fishing­related pressures and baseline shifts in affected populations. Sharks, it seems, have been subjected to the impacts of not just direct fishery exploitation but also through becoming by­catch, long before the advent and widespread use of plastic in the middle of the twentieth century.

Keywords: Scotland, 19th­Century; Sea Serpents; Non­Lethal Entanglement; Basking Sharks

Ocean Research Group, Department of Plants, Food and Environmental Science, Dalhousie University, PO Box 550, Truro, Nova Scotia Canada, B2N 4P8,

* Corresponding author. E­mail address: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION practice and proscriptions being incomplete, conservation biology needs to expand its Ecosystems are very much shaped by historical perspective (Crumley 1994; Meine both past actions and corresponding societal 1999). For example, the abundance and attitudes (e.g. Cronon and McDonnell 1993; biodiversity of marine fauna in the north France 2007; Szabo and Hedl 2010). In Atlantic has been seriously altered through consequence, and in order to avoid its human actions (e.g. Lotze et al. 2006). Much

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of the recognition for this has come from for example, suggested that folkloric tales of quantitative reanalyses of historical fishery sea monsters, in particular those from records. Mowat (1999), however, provides Scotland, home to a rich panoply of such equally valuable evidence for such declines (Hamilton 2003), may provide antecedent based on the qualitative (i.e. textural) information useful for interpreting historical examination of historical accounts from changes in biogeography. Re­examining the eyewitnesses. The scholarly process of “data” (sensu Paxton 2009) imbedded in studying dynamic relationships between historical anecdotes of sea monster people, biota, and their environment in both encounters can indeed yield ethnobiological present as well as past times falls within the insights (Paxton and Naish 2019). Not bailiwick of ethnobiology (Anderson et al. without reason, therefore, did Bolster 2011). (2012:91) state that “no marine One way for ethnobiology to contribute to environmental historian worth his or her salt the discipline of historical ecology is through can afford to ignore…nineteenth­century sea the use of anecdotal information, often serpents.” compiled from a wide variety of non­ In this paper, I explore another example standard sources (da Silva et al. 2014). of how the use of non­standard documentary Such information (e.g. Al­Abdulrazzak et al. sources can provide insight about historical 2012; McClenachan et al. 2012; Saenz­ baseline conditions for important species of Arroyo et al. 2005, 2006) can be used to marine fauna. Specifically, the aim of the help to address the conundrum facing investigation was to carefully parse conservation biologists posed by the “shifting eyewitness descriptions and to scrutinize baseline syndrome” (sensu Pauly 1995), illustrations of the sighting made from the wherein each generation successively vessel Leda in the Scottish Hebrides in 1872 redefines what is deemed “natural” of an unidentified marine object (UMO), according to its own temporally truncated identified at the time as being a sea serpent. view of an increasingly depauperate and I then, by way of the literary conceit of a biodiversity­impoverished world. hypothetical moot court case, examine and Understanding pre­anthropogenic baseline reinterpret this anecdote, suggesting it to conditions is deemed essential for designing provide some of the first evidence for the effective present­day management activities non­lethal pre­plastic entanglement of a as well as for setting future restoration goals marine animal in European waters. The in complex social­ecological systems (e.g. supposition is of course that: (a) sea Pitcher 2005; Narchi et al. 2013). serpents do not now, and never have, Ethnozoology entails the ecological, existed in the form commonly perceived in cognitive, and symbolic study of fauna modern cryptozoological lore; and (b) that (Alves and Albuquerque 2017), irrespective almost all sightings of sea serpents can be of whether those animals are real or explained by natural phenomena (France imaginary (e.g. Tidermann and Gosler 2010; 2019; Loxton and Prothero 2015). It is hoped Da Silva Vieira et al. 2017; Leclercq­Marx that this work will demonstrate the 2018). Then there are the intriguing in­ importance to conservation biology in between cases of actual animals recognizing the utility of such qualitative misinterpreted as mythological ones historical ethnobiology research, such as (McGowan­Hartman 2013). Parsons (2004), originally proposed by Paul (1995) and as

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purposely reiterated by an anonymous 2019). In terms of the latter, conservation reviewer of the present manuscript. biology­themed, illation for an UMO, the During the nineteenth century, sea Leda “sea serpent” therefore serves as the serpents were considered by many, singular Old World equivalent to the much including a cadre of the world’s leading more famous Gloucester or “Great New natural scientists (Lyons 1999; McGowan­ England Sea Serpent” (O’Neill 1999); one Hartman 2013; France 2019), to be real set of sightings occurring near the beginning, animals meritorious of study. Today, with the and the other toward the end, of the exception of cryptozoologists who continue nineteenth­century, both I propose, being believe in such (Dendle 2006; Rossi 2016), anthropogenic by­products of the rapid and despite all evidence to the contrary (Loxton rapacious expansion of fishing and hunting and Prothero 2015; Williams 2015; France pressure on marine fauna during that time. 2019), the benefit of greater scientific knowledge has resulted in aquatic monsters being parsimoniously explained (i.e. MATERIAL AND METHODS “Occam’s Razor” – Das 2009) by either known and at­the­time unrecognized animals The Leda Account, its Times and (Brongersma 1968; Paxton and Holland Significance 2005; Paxton et al. 2005; Brink­Roby 2008; Woodley et al. 2011; Galbreath 2015), Throughout the nineteenth century, and natural phenomena (Lehn 1979; Lehan and during the Victorian Age in particular, middle­ Schroeder 1981; Binns 1984), or and upper­class Britons occupied their anthropogenic accretions (France 2016a,b, leisure by enthusiastically engaging in 2017, 2018, 2019). natural history pursuits. Naturalist social There is a good case to be made for clubs and avocational societies flourished, focusing in on the particulars of the 1872 lecture series were frequent, and trips to the Leda incident, as it has been referred to as countryside and seashore for collecting being the “most detailed account of a sea specimens were de rigueur. There was serpent encounter” in the British Isles hardly a drawing­room that did not contain a (Harrison 2001:153). Indeed, of all the curiosity cabinet, fern­case, shell collection, hundreds of reports about sea serpents from or live aquarium in which to display the Europe (Oudemans 1892; Heuvelmans results of one’s personal gleanings and 1968), that pertaining to the Leda encounter study (Barber 1980; Mason 2017). Natural comes closest, in terms of the number and history became an obsession, with books nature of the eyewitness observations, to about such outselling novels from the likes of matching those for the ”Gloucester Sea Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, and Hardy in the Serpent” of New England and New York latter decades of the century. (Soini 2010), which remains the most Imagine a gentleman or a lady, sitting in sighted and studied UMO in history (Davis et his Glasgow study or her Edinburgh solar in al. 1817; Brown 1990; Burns 2014), and one the spring of 1873, and opening the May whose anecdotes about which frequently issue of The Zoologist, a monthly journal of and explicitly liken the creature’s body to natural history popular in educated society, resembling a string of entangled fishing net that ran from 1843 to 1916, that was edited gear or maritime debris (Fama 2012; France by noted entomologist and botanist Edward

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Newman (Figure 1). There, between pages nod of their heads, or a loud exclamation of 3517­3522, they would have found the letter “bosh!” or “humbug!” depending on what entitled “Appearance of an Animal, believed might today be called their respective to be that which is called the Norwegian “Mulder­esque or Scully­like” X­Files Sea­Serpent, on the Western Coast of predilection. Scotland, in August, 1872,” written by the That a science­based journal of Reverend John Macrae and the Reverend international reputation would have run an David Twopeny, the former, the Minister of article about sea serpents was Glenelg, Invernesshire, and the latter, the commonplace for the time. Many of the Vicar of Stockbury, Kent. Three facets about world’s leading natural scientists, including the article would have nary raised an the likes of Sirs Richard Owen, Charles eyebrow of surprise by a learned reader as Lyell, and Joseph Banks, considered the being anything out of the ordinary, whereas study of sea serpents to be not only a one most certainly was exceptional, which legitimate but also a meritorious field of would have elicited him or her to sit upright scholarship (Brown 1990; Lyons 2009; in their chairs, with either an “I­told­you­so” France 2019). This was particularly so in relation to the avalanche of paleontological discoveries that were then being unearthed (Barber 1980; Regal 2012; McGowan­ Hartman 2013; Loxton and Prothero 2015), and how animals from the antediluvian past were related to present­day creatures (Ritvo 1997). In consequence, in addition to The Zoologist, dozens of articles on sea serpents were published in other prestigious scholarly journals such as Nature and American Naturalist (Westrum 1979), including Scotland’s own Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society, as well as a flurry of contemporaneous books: Sea Monsters Unmasked (1883), Mythical Monsters (1886), Monsters of the Sea: Legendary and Authentic (1890), The Great Sea­Serpent: An Historical and Critical Treatise (1892). That it was in the Hebrides on the northwest edge of Scotland where a sea serpent was observed was also no big surprise. For did not history inform that such Figure 1. Cover of the 1873 issue of the natural northern waters harboured monstrous history journal that contained the report of the denizens of the deep (e.g. Svanberg 1999; Leda unidentified marine object (UMO), the most Houwen and Olsen 2001; Starkey 2017; detailed description of a putative sea serpent Szabo 2018; Jacquemard et al. 2018), observed in British Isles waters. This and all subsequent images are in the Public Domain.

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something known and generally accepted, phenomenon. Clergymen, well­educated, as reflected in the article’s very title, since naturally inquisitive about elusive matters, the 1755 English publication of Bishop and blessed with the luxury of considerable Pontopiddian’s highly influential The Natural unstructured time, were always well History of Norway? And of course, Scottish represented in amateur naturalist groups mythology has long populated its resident throughout the 1800s. This was to be waters with all manner of mysterious beings expected since, for many Victorians, the (e.g. Tiet 1918; Parsons 2004). For example, study of nature was invested with a “Nessie” did not arise de novo in 1933 by theological significance. It is no coincidence accident in her eponymous loch. She owed that the 1789 classic of enduring popularity, her commotion­filled debut (sensu Williams which became the standard to be emulated 2015) to a fusion of the image of a by many, The Natural History of Selborne, plesiosaur and humans garnered from the was produced by a country parson, Gilbert then­screening King Kong with that of White. Natural history had its roots in widely­held folkloric beliefs in the existence “natural theology,” as popularized in William of kelpie water horses (Loxton and Prothero Paley’s highly influential 1802 book, Natural 2015). In fact, one of the earliest modern Theology; or, Evidence of the Existence and encounters of international renown with a Attributes of the Deity Collected from the purported sea monster occurred in 1808 on Appearances of Nature. This work was the Orkney island of Stronsay (Barclay based on the idea that there existed an 1811). Many Scots, despite mounting overall design in nature, a rank and order in evidence, largely promulgated by English the great chain of life and regularity in the (e.g. Home 1809), that the monster was operation of laws, all of which being nothing more than a decomposing basking evidence of a transcendent guiding shark (Swinney 1983), clung to their intelligence of a caring Creator (Berger jingoistic belief otherwise throughout the 1983). For this reason, the practice of nineteenth century (e.g. Traill 1854). Indeed, natural history was regarded as a morally the Scottish islands are home to a long uplifting enterprise that elevated the mind legacy of sea serpent/monster sightings and expanded the heart (Barber 1980), (Harrison 2001), some, such as that of the making it an attractive and even ideal “Soay Beast,” being the subject of pastime for clergy. Furthermore, given the considerable speculation (Burton 1960, absence of a “smoking gun” in the form of a 1961; Brongersma 1968; France 2017). body (Shermer 2003), the acceptance of The third facet of no surprise concerned nineteenth­century testimonies concerning the professional occupation of the authors of sea serpents depended much upon the The Zoologist article. Just as nineteenth­ societal position and consequent assumed century alpinism was more­or­less the character of eyewitnesses. Statements from original purview of the clergy, even the most gentlemen were accredited more than those causal reading of scholarly compilations of from the working class, with a guaranteed sea serpent accounts (Oudemans 1892; verisimilitude should the eyewitnesses be Heuvelmans 1968; O’Neill 1999; Harrison men of God. 2001) reveals the prevalent role played by Contrary to all this expectation, what is so reverends, pastors, and ministers, on both unusual about The Zoologist sea serpent sides of the Atlantic, in creating the account, enough so in this regard to surprise

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Victorian readers into suddenly sitting upright in their chairs and giving it their dedicated attention, is how markedly different the described circumstances were compared to the norm. Most sightings of sea serpents are extremely ephemeral affairs, lasting for a few minutes duration, and observed by only a few eyewitnesses. Someone shouts out excitedly to alert bystanders, and then, just as quickly as the mysterious UMO appeared, it is gone, never to be seen again, leaving the eyewitnesses to confirm, discuss, and debate about what they had collectively glimpsed. Even more common, however, is that most sightings have actually been made by solitary witnesses, with no one present to either corroborate or to discuss the encounter. In contrast, the case of the Leda UMO is extremely rare in the corpus of “sea­ serpentism” (sensu Mitchell 1829). The creature was observed in at least ten different locations and circumstances over a five­day period by more than a dozen Figure 2. Area in the Scottish Hebrides where individuals. In this regard, the Leda UMO is the Leda UMO was repeatedly seen by unique in the corpus of sea serpent sightings numerous eyewitnesses in August 1872. From in the British Isles. It is impossible to simply Gould (1930). dismiss the Leda UMO sightings as being Leda, for an excursion to Lochourn…Our hysteria of the type that gripped a very course lay down the Sound of Sleat, which limited number of schoolgirls or nuns on that side divides the Isle of Skye from believing they had respectively seen either the mainland, the average breadth of the witches in Salem or devils in Loudun. Clearly channel in that part being two miles the people in and around the Sound of Sleat [Figure 2]. did see something in the water, which It was a calm and sunshiny day, not appeared to them to be different from the a breath of air, and the sea perfectly norm, their confirmation bias kicking in to smooth. As we were getting the cutter suggest it to have been a sea serpent. along with oars we perceived a dark mass Finally, the events are described in such about two hundred yards astern of us, to detail that, not without reason, did Paul the north. While we were looking at it with Harrison label it the “most detailed account our glasses…another similar black lump of a sea serpent encounter” in the British rose to the left of the first, leaving an Isles (2001:153). interval between; then another and On the 20th of August 1872 we another followed, all in regular order. We started from Gleneig in a small cutter, the did not doubt it being one living creature; it

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moved slowly across our wake and by spouting. Forbes was alarmed and disappeared. Presently the first mass, retreated to the cabin, crying that the which was evidently the head, reappeared, creatures were coming down upon us. and was followed by the rising of the other When within about a hundred yards of us, black lumps, as before. Sometimes three it sank and moved away in the direction of appeared, sometimes four, five, or six, and Skye, just under the surface of the water, then sank again. When they rose, the for we could trace its course by the waves head appeared first, if it has been down, it raised on the still sea to the distance of a and the lumps rose after it in regular order, mile or more. After this it continued at beginning always with the next to the intervals to show itself, careering about at head, and rising gently, but when they a distance, as long as we were in that part sank, they sank altogether rather abruptly, of the Sound; the head and a small part sometimes leaving the head visible. It only of the body being visible on the gave the impression of a creature crooking surface, but we did not again, on that day up its back to sun itself. There was no see it so near nor so well as at first. At one appearance of undulation; when the lumps time Forbes and Katie, and Gilbert Bogle sank, other lumps did not rise in the saw a fin sticking up at a little distance interim between them. The greatest back from the head, but neither of us were number we counted was seven, making then observing. eight with the head, as shown in sketch On our return the next day we were number one [Figure 3]. The parts were again becalmed on the north side of Loch separated from each other by intervals of Hourn, where it is about three miles wide, about their own length, the head being the day warm and sunshiny as before. As rather smaller and flatter than the rest, and we were dragging slowly along in the the nose being slightly visible above the afternoon the creature again appeared water; but we did not see the head raised over towards the south side, at a greater above the surface either this or the next distance than we saw it the first day. It now day nor could we see the eye. We had no showed itself in three or four rather long means of measuring the length with any lines, as in sketch number two [Figure 3], accuracy; but taking the distance from the and looked considerably longer than it did centre of one lump to the centre of the the day before; as nearly as we could next to be six feet, and it could scarcely be compute, it looked at least sixty feet in less, the whole length of the portion length. Soon it began careering about, visible, including the intervals submerged, showing but a small part of itself, as on the would be forty­five feet. day before, and appeared to be going up Presently, as we were watching the Loch Hourn, and when we had nearly creature, it began to approach us rapidly, reached the island of Sandaig, it came causing a great agitation in the sea. Nearly rushing past us about a hundred and fifty the whole of the body, if not all of it, had yards to the south, on its return from Loch now disappeared and the head advanced Hourn. It went with great rapidity, its black at a great rate in the midst of a shower of head only visible through the clear sea, fine spray, which was evidently raised in followed by a long trail of agitated water. some way by the quick movement of the As it shot along, the noise of its rush animal – it did not appear how – and not through the water could be distinctly heard

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on board. There were no organs of motion The ferrymen on each side of Kylerhea to be seen, nor was there any shower of saw it pass rapidly through on the evening spray as on he day before, but merely of the 21st, and heard the rush of water; such a commotion in the sea as its quick they were surprised, and thought it might passage might be expected to make. Its be a shoal of porpoises, but could not progress was equable and smooth, like comprehend their going so quickly. that of a log towed rapidly. For the rest of [Another individual]…with other men in his the day, as we worked northwards through boat…saw the creature at about a the Sound of Sleat, it was occasionally distance of about one hundred and fifty within sight of us till nightfall, rushing about yards. Two days after we saw it, [yet at a distance, as before, and sowing only another individual]…was fishing in a boat its head and small part of its body on the in the entrance to Loch Duich…when he surface. It seemed on each day to keep saw the animal, near enough to hear the pace about us and as we were always noise, and see the ripples it made rushing then rowing, we were inclined to think it along in the sea. He says that what perhaps might be attracted by the seemed four or more humps, or ‘half measured sound of the oars…We have rounds followed its head’ as he calls them, only to add to this narrative of what we and that they sometimes rose and saw ourselves, the following instances of sometimes sank altogether. He estimated its being seen by other people, of the its length at no less than between sixty correctness of which we have no doubt. and eighty feet. He saw it also on two

Figure 3. Subtle depictions of the many­humped Leda UMO, so unlike the often exaggerated illustrations of fantasy characteristic for the period. Upper couplet from Macrae and Twopeny (1873), and lower version from an 1872 article in Land and Water (in Heuvelmans 1968). Other eyewitnesses mention the presence of a dorsal fin sticking out above the surface.

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subsequent days in Loch Duich. On all early autumn. There is considerable these occasions his brother…was with him probability that it has visited the same in the boat, and they were both much coasts before. alarmed, and pulled to the shore in great In the summer of 1871, some large haste. creature was seen for some time rushing A lady at Duisdale, in Skye, a place about in Loch Duich, but it did not show overlooking the part of the Sound…said itself sufficiently for anyone to ascertain that she was looking out with a glass when what it was. Also, some years back, a well she saw a strange object in the sea, which known gentleman of the west coast was appeared like eight seals in a row. This crossing the Sound of Mull, from Mull to was just about the time that we saw it. We the mainland, on a very calm afternoon, were also informed that about the same ‘When’, as he writes, ‘our attention was time it was seen from the island of Eigg, attracted to a monster which had to the between Eigg and the mainland, about surface, not more than fifty yards from out twenty miles to the southwest of the boat. It rose without causing the slightest opening of Lochourn. We have not disturbance of the sea, or making the permission to mention the names in these slightest noise, and floated for some time last two instances. on the surface, but without exhibiting its head or tail, showing only the ridge of the ­ John Macrae and David Twopeny back, which was not that of a whale or any other sea animal that I had ever seen. The Reverend Twopeny adds a back appeared sharp and ridge­like, and in postscript: colour very dark, indeed black, or almost so. It rested quietly for a few minutes, and P.S. The writers of the above then dropped quietly down into the deep, account scarcely expect the public to without causing the slightest agitation. I believe in the existence of the creature should say that about forty feet of it, which they saw. Rather than that, they certainly no less, appeared on the look for the disbelief and ridicule to which surface'. the subject always gives rise, partly on It should be noticed that the account of the animal having been inhabitants of the western coast are quite pronounced to be a snake, without familiar with the appearance of whales, sufficient evidence, but principally because seals, and porpoises, and when they see of exaggerations and fables with which the them they recognize them at once. whole subject it beset. Nevertheless, they Whether the creature which pursued Mr consider themselves bound to leave M’Clean’s boat off the island of Coll in record of what they saw, in order that 1808 and of which there is an account naturalists may receive it as a piece of [published]…was one of these Norwegian evidence, or not, according to what they animals, it is not easy to say. Survivors think it is worth. The animal will very likely who knew Mr McLean say he could quite turn up on those coasts again, and it will be relied upon for the truth. The public are be in that ‘dead season’, so convenient to not likely to believe in the creature until it editors of newspapers, for it is never seen is caught, and that does not seem likely to but in the still warm days of summer or happen just yet, for a variety of reasons.

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One reason being that it has, from all 1817­19, and the Daedalus sea serpent of accounts given of it, the power of moving 1848, the Leda encounter has received little very rapidly. On the 20th, while we were attention, both at the time and ever since. becalmed in the mouth of Loch Hourn, a Edward Newman, editor of The Zoologist, steam launch slowly passed us, and, we used his prerogative and commented directly watched it, we reckoned its rate at five to following the letter, in which he emphasised six miles an hour. When the animal rushed his belief in the veracity of the account and past us on the next day at about the same illustration as they did not stray into the distance, and when we were again dubious territory of exaggeration: becalmed nearly in the same place, we agreed that it went twice as fast as the I have long expressed my firm steamer, and we thought its rate could not conviction that there exists a large marine be less than ten or twelve miles an hour. It animal unknown to us naturalists: I might be shot, but would probably sink… maintain this belief as firmly as ever. I It should be mentioned that when totally reject evidence of published we saw this creature, and made our representations; but I do not allow these sketches of it, we had never seen either imaginary figures to interfere with a firm Pontopiddan’s Natural History or his print conviction, although I admit their tendency of the Norwegian evidence, extending in that direction: the figures and through a number of years, which remains exaggerated descriptions of believers are after setting aside fables and far more damaging to a faith in such an exaggerations. It seems surprising that no animal than the arguments, the ridicule, or naturalist has ever applied himself to make the explanatory guesses of unbelievers. something about the animal. In the The guess that a little seal was magnified meantime, as the public will most probably by Captain M’Quhae [of the H.M.S. be dubious about quickly giving credit to Daedalus and eyewitness to the famous our account, the following explanations are 1848 sighting of an UMO] into a monster open to them, all of which have been several hundred feet in length is simply proposed by me, viz: porpoises, lumps of incredible: we smile at the conceit, and seaweed, empty herring barrels, bladders, that is all. logs of wood, waves of sea, and inflated Antoon Oudemans, in his comprehensive pig­skins! But as all these theories present The Great Sea­Serpent of 1892, devotes a to our mind greater difficulties than the paragraph to the incident. Herein, he existence of the animal itself, we feel equates the Leda creature with others seen obliged to decline them. in Norway, Massachusetts, as well as Scotland (see next section). He is content to Further Details from Eyewitnesses, present the Leda sightings as simply four and Historiography of Subsequent more sea serpent reports (Nos. 137 to 140) Cryptozoological Interpretations to add to his diachronic tally. Sea Monsters Unmasked by Henry Lee Compared to the flurry of commentary (1883) is notable for being an early attempt arising from sightings of other, more famous, to explain what have since become known UMOs, such as that of Egede monster of as “cryptids,” or hidden animals, by known 1734, the Gloucester and Boston craze of zoological explanations. His commentary

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about the Leda UMO is brief: “A sketch of it of the many mysterious monsters that was given which almost exactly accorded reside, unexplained, beneath the waves. with that of Pontopiddian’s sea serpent, Bernard Heuvelmans, in his 1968 In the namely, seven hunches or protuberances Wake of Sea­Serpents—the book that more like so many porpoises swimming in a line, than any other initiated the modern preceded by a head and neck raised slightly pseudoscience of cryptozoology—prefaces out of water” (p. 140). He goes on to refer to the Leda account by noting that with this the encounter, almost dismissively, as just particular sighting by “very respectable another of the many such that have witnesses” (p. 254) was of historic suggested the appearance of serpent­like significance since it showed the irrefutable sea monsters. Elsewhere in his book, he presence of such creatures in a place where makes a case (it must be said, not terribly their existence had been seriously convincingly) that most of these can be questioned ever since the 1808 ascribed to various configurations of the misidentification of a decomposing basking tentacles of giant squid, the “kraken” of lore. shark as the Stronsay Beast. Importantly, In The Case for the Sea­Serpent (1930), two other snippets of details from other R.T. Gould, like Oudemans before him, eyewitnesses are provided concerning the presents both the entire text and postscript observed fins (letter from Ms. Macrae to of the Reverends Macrae and Twopeny’s Oudemans, and letter from Bogle in the original letter and illustrations from The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle of 1877, both in Zoologist, as well as providing a map of the Heuvelmans 1968:255): sighting locations (Figure 1). He also shows ’In a few minutes afterwards,’ wrote extracts from an earlier account published in Miss Katie Macrae, ‘the row of lumps 1872 in the popular magazine Land and appeared again about a mile behind, and Water. Emphasised herein is mention that this time a triangular fin stuck up from the tremendous rush or tumult of water at about the 4th lump, and apparently 10 ft., the eyeless­mouthless­flattish head of the the size of our jib.’ Gilbert Bogle says ‘I UMO, audible enough to be heard on board distinctly saw the colour of the creature, the boat and even by spectators on the and what appeared to be a small fin on the shore, might have been “caused by a mane back or neck, moving rapidly sideways, lashing about.” In this 1872 account, and two or three yards behind he head. Its Reverend Twopeny describes seeing “the colour was a dark slaty brown, somewhat sea running off its back and the back of its similar to that of a porpoise.’ head, as it does from a low flat rock which To which Heuvelmans adds his has been submerged by a wave” (p. 150). contention that the two individuals were The six­to­eight counted humps, appearing referring to two different kinds of fin. He then as “dark ridges” which did not at all look like returns to quoting the Land and Water waves, were noted to rise sequentially, one article, in which Reverend Twopeny states after the other, “easily, and not without a that the appearance and propulsion of the jerk.” Gould tangentially notes that several UMO was unlike “any known cetacean, other sightings were reported in the area shark, or fish of any kind.” around the same time as that of the Leda but Heuvelmans also includes an excerpt does not offer any personal commentary on from an 1873 letter to The Times by the the nature of the beast; it is simply one more fisheries zoologist and natural historian, Dr.

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Frank Buckland, entitled “The Scotch Sea other modern books (Ellis 1994; Coleman Snake.” A frequent commentator on sea and Hughe 2003; Woodley 2008; Paxton serpent sightings from around the world, and Lothero 2015). here Buckland backs away from his previous supposed candidate identity of a giant RESULTS AND DISCUSSION conger eel, and suggests that it might have been an oarfish that the Leda witnesses New Parsimonious Conservation observed. But that said, he rightly points out Biology Illation that the illustrations indicate vertical curvature, something not possible for most The most notable behavioral feature of fish which propel themselves through the Leda UMO was its occasional rapid sideways flexure…unless, however, the speed of movement which caused a candidate might be some form of flatfish (as disturbance considerable enough to produce for example a halibut) which has re­ a “shower of spray” audible from a distance. orientated itself onto one side…or perhaps Perplexingly, propulsion was caused by an intoxicated or partially paralysed oarfish neither undulations of its elongated “body,” swimming on its side. Heuvelmans considers nor by any distal or caudal forces. such suggestions as unlikely candidates to Sometimes the entire bulk of the UMO was explain the animal seen by the Leda. Rightly seen to be pulled downward, one “black he notes that Macrae and Twopeny lump” after another quickly disappearing into specifically stated that “there was no the depths with little or no warning. When appearance of undulation.” From this he one lump disappeared under the surface, logically concludes that, just as for the case there was no progressive undulation in of the American sea serpent (by this he which successive humps filled the space means the UMO seen around Gloucester, between them, before each in turn was lost Massachusetts in 1817­19), that “the to sight. Upon resurfacing, the opposite supposed vertical undulations may be due to would happen, with each integral lump the sea­serpent’s anatomy rather than its bobbing up in sequence. At other times, the motion” (p. 257). For Heuvelmans, the Leda UMO was seen hardly moving or perhaps UMO is a classic example of his “many­ motionless upon the water, the elements humped” sea serpent category. comprising the body extended above the Sweeney (1972) paraphrases the account surface as if the animal was basking in the but does not show the illustrations. Harrison sun. Intriguingly, the portion of the UMO (2001) includes the entire The Zoologist observed above the surface appeared to transcription, but also omits the illustrations. neither take notice nor be nervous of Neither author offers any opinions. McEwan approaching the various water craft. (1978) provides a truncated version of the Something in the water was obviously of encounter which he prefaces by stating that, attraction to keep the UMO in the same unlike some hoaxes, the Leda incident, general area, “careering about,” for five because it is described “with obvious days. Sightings of similar UMOs in the restraint and objectivity,” “cannot be region are noted to be restricted to the dismissed so contemptuously” (p. 24). He summer and early autumn. shows his own rendition of one of the The most notable anatomical feature of illustrations. The Leda UMO is absent from the Leda UMO was that its considerable, 45

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to 60­foot, length was made up of a series them have narrow bodies that resemble the component body parts, including the premier Scottish creature as so described. The body one which was assumed to be the head. form of aquatic animals is such that they are These so­called dorsal “lumps” were designed to move through the water as described from an earlier sighting as being effortlessly as possible. The tumultuous “sharp and ridge­like,” and separated by spray of water displayed is therefore intervals. This distinctive structural form was unnatural and a clue that something else is maintained even while the irregular body going on here that is non­biological in origin. parts “floated” on the surface when the UMO As is the rigid composition of the UMO’s was not in rapid motion. Remarkably, the dorsal protuberances, each separated UMO was observed to have neither invariably from the next in the line, rising and discernable tail fins nor any lateral falling in sequence when the animal appendages which might account for its submerges or resurfaces. And then there is propulsion. Several eyewitnesses, however, the mysterious force behind the UMO’s describe the presence of a dorsal fin rising locomotion, a puzzle to explain given the above the surface. absence of tail flukes, fins, and side­to­side Reverend Twopeny, in his Postscript, undulations. In short, the animal’s movement briefly considers alternative hypotheses for is a biomechanical impossibility. the observed UMO: three are biologically­ There is really only a single explanation based (porpoises, seaweed lumps, and for the Leda UMO. I believe that Reverend logs), one aqueous (waves), and three Twopeny comes closest to the truth when he anthropogenic (empty herring barrels, writes that the physical and behavioral bladders, inflated pig­skins), all of which characteristics of the body were “like that of seem to him to be unlikely compared to the a log towed rapidly.” The parsimonious (i.e. UMO being a single, live animal. He then al à Occam’s razor) and non­ briefly gives his two cents worth by likening cryptozoological explanation behind the the creature to resembling the famous sea Leda UMO is that it was an animal observed serpent described by Pontopiddian (1755), pulling a string of fishing net or harpoon­line but is emphatic that he cannot, as others floats in which it had become either non­ have cavalierly done in the past, pronounce lethally entangled or possibly struck and it to be a true snake. Oddly, he makes the affixed. Twopeny’s postulation of alternative following statement, in ignorance of the theories for the imagined sea serpent is copious literature to the contrary, that “it stymied by an inability to countenance that a seems surprising that no naturalist has ever train of “empty herring barrels, applied himself to make something about the bladders…and inflated pig­skins”—all of animal [i.e. the sea serpent].” This gives which were used, in addition to pieces of credence to his statement that the cork and blown­glass balls (see eyewitness descriptions and illustrations contemporaneous illustrations from Goode were made independent of knowing about et al. 1884 and photographs of artifacts from Pontopiddian’s dominating influence on all maritime museums in France 2016,a,b, such matters throughout the nineteenth 2017, 2019), as fishing net or harpoon­line century. floats in the nineteenth century—would There are very few marine animals of the display mobility like the observed UMO in reported size of the Leda UMO, and none of consequence of their being attached to an

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animal. previous, in that case, non­lethal, The abundance and biodiversity of more entanglement. In the past, before the use of than two hundred species of marine animals, synthetic lines, the opportunity for an including many species of sharks, are entangled animal to escape would have affected by the serious problem of been much greater. Animals could often entanglement in marine debris and fishing muscle their way through gill nets made of gear (Laist 1997; Derraik 2002). Whereas it cotton or flax twine and hemp, sometimes in is true that earlier nets and ropes made from the process making off with portions of the natural hemp fibre (Figure 4) will have net and its accompanying floats in tow. Non­ deteriorated more rapidly compared to lethal entanglement in the nineteenth modern nylon or polyethylene ones, it would century may have lasted, if not for half a be erroneous to suppose, as have others decade or longer as today due to non­ (e.g. Gregory 2009; NOAA 2014; Vegter et degradable plastic, at least for a duration of al. 2014), that such material, in order to be of months, and possibly several years. This sufficient durability for their continued would certainly have been sufficient time for widespread maritime use (Aiken and Purser an unfortunately entangled animal pulling a 1936; McCaskil 2009), would not have lasted string of buoys through the water to easily be long enough to pose a threat for entangling misconstrued as a sea serpent susceptible wildlife (Deedy 2017). (contemporaneous illustrations of strings of Furthermore, during the nineteenth century, fishing net floats from Goode et al. 1884 that hemp ropes were often impregnated with resemble the “lumps” of the Leda sea dye or pine tar as a mordant to extend their serpent are shown in France 2016a,b, 2017, longevity (Kristjonsson 1971; Bekker­Nielsen 2018, 2019). and Casola 2001) or were even reinforced In his comprehensive overview of late with braided wire (Goode et al. 1884). nineteenth­century fishing in the British Isles, Some animals can remain non­lethally Wilcocks (1884) describes and illustrates entangled in fishing gear or maritime debris many methods in use at the time (Figure 4). for extended periods of months and even Additionally, with respect to northern Ireland, years (Johnson 2005; Fama 2012), as for north­west Scotland, and the coast of example, a recent case in Scotland (Anon. Norway, nets were purposely set to entrap 2019a). Entangled animals can travel basking sharks during the nineteenth century thousands of kilometres (Lyman in NOAA (Fairfax 1998; Speedie 2017). In short, 2014). For example, the carcass of a already by the time of the Leda incident, an juvenile humpback whale, which was obstacle course of deployed fishing gear discovered on a beach in northern Scotland, existed along the northeast Atlantic coast in not too far from where the Leda UMO which to permanently entrap or temporarily sighting took place 147 years ago, was entangle marine animals. Furthermore, found to be entangled in the line and float of commercial fisheries also existed in the a lobster trap from Nova Scotia, the poor northern Atlantic that involved hunting individual having survived long enough to cetaceans and basking sharks with thrown pull the cumbersome fishing gear a distance harpoons (Fairfax 1998; Szabo 2008). In a of more than four thousand kilometres procedure referred to as “kegging,” basking before succumbing (Anon. 2019b). Sadly, shark, giant Bluefin tuna, and whale this animal also displayed scars from a fishermen would attach a string of buoys,

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Figure 4. Fishing gear composed of natural material – hemp cordage, flax­twine mesh netting, and cork floats – used in the British Isles in the late nineteenth century, and all posing a threat for entangling basking sharks and other marine life. From Wilcocks (1884).

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barrels, or drums to the harpoon line in giant aquatic snakes (Lyons 2009), about attempt to create enough resistance to slow which some mystery existed (Svanberg animals down (photographs of such artifacts 1999). from various maritime museums are shown Often the debate assumed a stylized in France 2019). Some of these struck legalistic form. Most notably in this regard creatures could have survived for extended was the famous court case in New York City periods (Gardner 2007). Indeed, in pre­ wherein it was proven that whales were not ballistic times, it is thought that up to a in fact mammals but rather fish (Burnett quarter of all struck whales actually 2010). Next to clergymen and physicians, managed to evade capture (Mowat 1997). the membership of many amateur naturalist For example, the famous polar explorer societies was composed of judges and Fridtjof Nansen recounts (in France 2019) lawyers. In consequence, and given the losing equipment to one such animal that controversial acceptance for the existence of escaped from him, not once, but twice. One sea serpents, the first thing that many wonders if the next person who spotted eyewitnesses did upon debarking ship after Nansen’s struck whale, pulling along its having seen an UMO on their voyage, was three intertwined ropes and series of cask­ to report to the nearest dock­side legal office floats behind, perhaps festooned with kelp to file notarized testimony, sworn to by strands or other maritime debris, imagined themselves and as many supporting crew or that s/he had caught a glimpse of the elusive passenger eyewitnesses as possible. In the sea serpent. cases where naturalists delved deeply into notable sightings, their resulting writings Examination of Evidentiary Support were often presented with a statement or and Refutation in an Imagined Moot seal of legal authority (e.g. Davis et al. Case 1817). In ongoing debates about the true nature behind famous sea serpents, such as The nineteenth century was a time of the Stronsay carcass of 1808 (Swinney considerable zoological debate concerning 1983) or the Daedalus UMO of 1848 (Regal the relationships between living species 2012), which raged in learned journals and known to Europe and those new ones being the popular press, sometimes for decades, discovered from both the far­flung corners of often these exchanges mimicked the the increasingly explored world, as well as evidentiary format of a trial. And when sea from fossils excavated from the rock strata of serpent believers commented upon the deep time. How to contribute to and then latest reported sighting, almost invariably classify this rapidly increasing biodiversity they would in legalistic style, just as did became a major preoccupation of Reverends Macrae and Twopeny, make naturalists, both professional and reference to earlier sightings as a way to avocational. Taxonomic boundaries were shore up their suppositions by demonstrating often blurred (Ritvo 1997, 2010); no more so the long precedence for the existence of than in reference both to whales (Guizard such animals. Antoon Oudemans, in his 2018), which had a long history of being seminal 1892 compendium The Great Sea­ regarded as monsters (Hendrikx 2018), as Serpent, for example, provides evidence well as imagined­to­be real monsters such which he believes to be of confirmatory as sea serpents, which may or may not be support for the Leda sea serpent by referring

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to previously observed and famous sea serpent before us; I then ordered the man serpents in Norway and Massachusetts, as at the helm to keep the land again, and to well as to a less well­known one from the come up with this creature of which I had Scottish Isles. In the next section, I will, heard so many stories. Though the fellows Agent Mulder­like1 present this “the truth is were under some apprehension, they were out there” cryptozoological evidence, obliged to obey my orders. In the critically comment upon it, and then, Agent meantime, the sea­snake passed us by, Scully­like2 present alternative conservation and we were obliged to tack the vessel to biology evidence from the same regions get nearer to it. As the snake swam faster which suggests that “sea serpents” there, as than we could row, I took my gun which I believe to be the case for the Leda UMO in was loaded with small shot, and fired at it; the Sound of Sleat, are all mundane animals on this he immediately plunged under observed in the state of misfortune of pulling water. We rowed to the place where it trains of entangled fishing nets, hunting gear, sank down…and lay upon our oars, or other maritime debris. thinking it would come up again to the 1. For his Norwegian cryptozoology point surface; however it did not. Where the using confirmatory expert and witness snake plunged down, the water appeared evidence, Oudemans (1892) first draws thick and red; perhaps the small shot readers’ attention to the fact that the might have wounded it, the distance being illustrations of the Leda encounter are nearly very little. The head of this sea­serpent, exactly the same as those in the drawing which it held more than two feet above the produced by Mr. Benstrup, as described in surface of the water, resembled that of a Bishop Pontopiddian’s 1755 classic The horse. It was of a greyish colour and the Natural History of Norway. A standard in all mouth was quite black and very large. It nineteenth­century naturalists’ libraries, this had black eyes, and a long white mane, widely read and influential book can be said which hung down from the neck to the to have initiated the modern sea serpent surface of the water. Besides the head and phenomenon (Gould 1930). According to neck, we saw seven or eight folds, or coils, Lee (1883), the drawing (Figure 5) was of this snake, which were very thick, and produced by another clergyman and is a as far as we could guess there was a representation of the UMOs observed in fathom’s distance [i.e. about two metres] 1746 and 1747 by both Governor Benstrup between each fold. and Royal Commander Lorenz von Ferry, Oudemans makes much ado about the the pilot­general at Bergen. Oudemans’ colouration of the creature’s head, noting commentary on the illustration is that it that such sea serpents have skin like that of shows a distinct head with a large eye, a pinnipeds (seals and sea lions). He then nostril, but no teeth. Behind this trails a runs off into the kind of Kiplingesque “just­ shoulder­length mane and a sinuous body so” story­telling that often categorizes composed of six large “coils.” von Ferry cryptozoology by speculating that the reason provided the following testimony to legal why von Ferry found the skin on the head to authorities, which was subsequently sworn be grey rather than its normal hue of dark to by ten corroborating witnesses brown was due to the weather being hot that (Oudemans 1892:104): day and the skin drying out just as one can I was informed that there was a sea­ see when observing sea­lions on beaches.

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Figure 5. The many­humped Norwegian sea­orm from Pontopiddian (1755), which was referred to by Macrae and Twopeny in the title of their 1873 letter published in The Zoologist about the Leda UMO, and used by Oudemans (1892) as evidentiary support for the existence of sea serpents, including the one seen by those aboard the Leda. He then cites a scientific letter by Harvard the earlier famous sightings compiled by professor William Peck whom, though the Pontopiddian, even the briefest perusal of naturalist considered the existence of the the illustrations indicates that there are sea serpent to be “sufficiently conclusive,” obvious differences. The Scottish creature thought that the mane was merely an optical displays neither an elevated, horse­like deception caused by spray as the animal head, nor a mane. Where the illustrations moved forward. Lee (1883) explained the and accounts do match is in the interspersed “supposed coils” here and in all such series of humps or coils that were observed accounts as being nothing more than a above the surface of the water. This is the series of porpoises following each other in a characteristic trait of the so­called “many­ line, as is their common practise. He also humped sea serpent,” one of the most notes that anatomical impossibility of any prevalent typologies, and one which is snake throwing its body into such vertical believed by cryptozoologists to have a undulations. Oudemans dismisses these “marked predilection” for Massachusetts criticisms: Peck is wrong as he had been (see below) and north­west Scotland biased by the fact that none of the (Heuvelmans 1968). eyewitnesses of the Gloucester Sea Serpent It is my parsimonious contention that all had observed the presence of a mane such many­humped UMOs are merely (elsewhere, he explains the difference due to animals with the misfortune of being non­ sexual dimorphism between the particular lethally entangled in fishing nets, hunting individual American and Norwegian sea equipment, or other maritime debris. The serpents being sighted); and Lee is wrong as occasionally remarked­upon presence of a he is silent with regard the head of the hairy “mane” draped about the neck or back creature, only noting that it did not resemble is suggestive of enveloping mesh netting. that of a snake. “A fine explanation indeed!”, Strings of floats dragged along the surface Oudemans comments snidely. behind can explain “humps” or “coils” 2. For my Norwegian conservation (France 2016a,b, 2017, 2018). Even Bishop biology counterpoint using alternative expert Pontopiddian (1755) himself acknowledged and witness evidence, I note that despite the likeness of UMOs to such, as witness to Oudemans’ attempt to link the Leda UMO to his own summarizing observations about

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sea serpents, in which he notes that though sighted and studied sea serpent in history. once doubting in their existence, he became Of the nearly ninety documented eyewitness a believer due to the “incontestable proof”: accounts (Davis et al. 1817; Sargent 1818; Though no one has ever been able Soini 2010), one of the most detailed ones to measure this animal, many witnesses comes from James Prince who, along with agree that the serpent must be as long as several hundred others, observed the UMO a cable, viz., 100 fathoms or 300 ells [180 in Boston Harbour in the summer of 1819 metres], whilst it lay on the surface of the (France 2019:126): water, so that only here and there behind I presume I may have seen what is the head, which is held upwards, some generally thought to be the sea­ parts of the back were visible, which were serpent…On our arrival on the beach, we also held upwards, whilst the serpent bent; associated with a considerable number of and from afar one would have believed persons, on foot and in chaises, and very that he saw some tuns or hogsheads [i.e. soon an animal of the fish­kind made his different sized barrels], which floated in a appearance. His head appeared about line, so that there was a space between three feet out of water; I counted thirteen each of them. bunches on his back: my family thought Generally, things which are thought to there were fifteen—he passed three times resemble a floating line of barrels are more at a moderate rate across the bay, but so than likely to really be a floating line of fleet as to occasion a foam in the barrels (Loxton and Prothero 2015). This is water—and my family and myself, who the “duck test” of abductive reasoning (i.e. if were in carriage, judged he was fifty feet in it looks, swims, and sounds like a duck, then length, and, at the extend, not more than it probably is a duck). Although Oudemans sixty; whether, however, the wake might (1892) comments on the remarkable not add to the appearance of his length; or repetition of eyewitnesses each whether the undulation of the water, or his independently describing the bodies of peculiar manner of propelling himself, UMOs as resembling a line of floating might not cause the appearance of barrels, his confirmation bias stops short of protuberances, I leave for your better allowing him to follow Occam’s Razor to its judgment… obvious conclusion. The same pertains for As he swam up the bay, we and the Heuvelmans (1968), whom even goes as far other spectators moved on, and kept as to frequently refer to his many­humped abreast of him; he occasionally withdrew category of UMOs with the sobriquet of himself under water, and the idea occurred “string of buoys.” to me that this occasionally raising his 3. For his Massachusetts cryptozoology head above the level of the water, was to point using confirmatory expert and witness take breath, as the time he kept under evidence, Oudemans (1892:249) next water was of an average about eight reminds readers of the similarity between minutes; after being accustomed to view descriptions of the disappearing and him, we became more composed; and reappearing behavior the Leda UMO and made the annexed figure of his outlines that of American reports of the Gloucester [Figure 6]... Sea Serpent “sinking down like a rock.” The After being on the long beach about Gloucester Sea Serpent remains the most an hour [and observing him], the animal

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disappeared…[While on another nearby having seen. Further interpretations, many beach] we had more than a dozen blinkered by overt confirmation bias, from different views of him, and each similar to later cryptozoologists, are presented in the other…I feel satisfied of the France (2019). correctness of my decision that he is sixty 4. For my Massachusetts conservation feet long, unless the ripple of his wake biology counterpoint using alternative expert deceived me—nor my dear sir, do I and witness evidence, I note that if the undertake to say he was of the snake or elevated “head” is removed from Prince’s eel kind, though that was the general Massachusetts illustration, one can certainly impression on my family, the spectators see the similarity between it and the Leda and myself. Certainly it is a very strange UMO. In point of fact, most of the animal. eyewitnesses of the Gloucester UMO did not The role of the Gloucester Sea Serpent in report seeing any head. For those that did, the antebellum development of the culture the “head” appeared to be devoid of physical and science of American natural history was characteristics that one would expect. For profound (Brown 1990; Burns 2014; France example, my selected counterpoint anecdote 2019), as has been its continued influence from 1815, wherein Elkanah Finney spotted on the pseudoscience of cryptozoology ever a strange creature in the Bay State waters, since (France 2019), wherein it is touted as is a teaser for what would become being “by far the best­documented evidence commonplace observance by hundreds of that sea­serpents exist” (Bauer 2013). gaggling onlookers two years hence (France Oudemans (1892), for example, devotes 2019:108): considerable space to interpreting the I looked towards the cove, where I Gloucester UMO, noting the creature’s saw something which appeared to the multiple “coils, or joints, or bunches” were naked eye to be a drift sea­weed. I then evident even when the animal was at rest viewed it through a perspective glass, and and cannot be explained away as being due was in a moment satisfied that it was to rapid motion. He cherry­picks particular some aquatic animal, with the form, anecdotes to support his pet­theory that all motion, and appearance of which I had sea serpents are a single type of prehistoric hitherto been unacquainted. It was about a marine mammal, ignores conflicting quarter of a mile from the shore, and was evidence suggesting otherwise, and moving with great rapidity…The animal remarkably even goes as far as to invent went about a quarter of a mile to the what he believes the eyewitnesses truly saw, northward; then turned about, and while irrespective of what they actually reported to turning, displayed a greater length than I

Figure 6. Illustration by James Prince of the many­humped Gloucester Sea Serpent, referred to by Oudemans (1892) as evidentiary support for the existence of sea serpents, including the one seen by those aboard the Leda, and alternatively by France (2019) to suggest that the UMO to have been an entangled animal.

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before seen; I supposed at length a buoys on a net rope,” “like a string of empty hundred feet. It then came towards me, in barrels tied together,“ “like a string of kegs a southerly direction, very rapidly, until he connected on a rope,” etc. Despite the was I line with me, when he stopped, and obvious parsimonious illation, Heuvelmans lay entirely still on the surface of the water. (1968), in In the Wake of the Sea­Serpents I then had a good view of him through my posits his own theories to explain what he glass, at the distance of a quarter of a refers to as “the appearance of a string of mile. His appearance in this situation was buoys” (my italics): vertical bends in a very like a string of buoys. I saw perhaps thirty long animal, a row of solid dorsal humps or or forty of those protuberances or air­filled sacs, transverse folds or perhaps bunches, which were about the size of a turbulence waves in a very fat body (i.e. barrel. The head appeared to be about six there is no end to the imagination that or eight feet long, and where it was cryptozoologists sometimes invoke to avoid connected with the body was a little larger the obvious). It is also worth noting that than the body…I could not discern any Finney’s 120­foot estimated length for his mouth...While he lay in this situation he sighted UMO is non­tenable given that there appeared to be about a hundred or a has never existed any marine animal larger hundred and twenty feet long. The body than the present­day 30­metre (98­foot) Blue appeared to be of a uniform size. I saw no whale. Only a non­biological explanation part of the animal which I supposed to be such as a true “string of buoys” can account a tail…I could not discover any eyes, for such an enormous length, something mane, gills, or breathing holes. I did not given additional credence by the see any fins or legs. The animal did not imperviousness of the “body” of the utter any sound, and did not appear to Gloucester UMO to barrages of musket shot, notice any thing. It remained still and and even in one case, remarkably, cannon motionless for five minutes or more…The fire. next morning I rose very early to discover And with respect to those few him…He often disappeared, and was gone eyewitnesses of the Gloucester UMO who for five or ten minutes under the water. I did observe a head, I agree with Fama’s thought he was diving or fishing for his (2012) interpretation that the first keg or food…His quickest motion was very rapid: buoy in the line must have been different I should suppose at the rate of fifteen or than the others (e.g. the presence of what I twenty miles an hour. Mackerel, believe to have been a marlinspike that was menhaden, herring, and other bait fish likened by some to being the serpent’s abound in the cove where the animal was tongue ­ France 2019), thereby creating the seen. illusion of a head raised above the body. The The absence of a distinctive head, tail, rapid disappearance and reappearance and fins in this anecdote, as well as likening singled out by Oudemans as linking the the series of numerous body protuberances comparative behaviors of Leda and to resembling “a string of buoys,” bespeaks Gloucester UMOs is an important point. The of a train of floats from a fishing net. More description in Finney’s anecdote (as well as than a dozen other eyewitnesses (France those of others) of the train of float­like 2019) describe the UMO’s body similarly: humps lying motionless upon the surface for “like the buoys of a net,” “joints like wooden extended periods, followed by their sudden

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downward disappearance, together with the of the boat, finding the water shallow, it absence of any head noted by most raised its monstrous head above water, eyewitnesses, led me to posit that the and by a winding course get, with entangled animal behind the Gloucester apparent difficulty clear of the creek, UMO was not an air­breathing whale as where our boat lay, and where the monster Fama (2012) had proposed, but rather, as I seemed in danger of being imbayed. It believe to also be the case for the Leda continued to move off, with its head above UMO, a large fish (France 2019). water, and with the form somewhat oval. 5. Finally, for his Scottish Isles Its neck somewhat smaller. Its shoulders, cryptozoology point using confirmatory if I can so term them, considerably expert and witness evidence, Oudemans, broader, and thence it tapered towards the following the lead of Reverends Macrae and tail, which last it kept pretty low in the Twopeny, emphases the historical water, so that a view of its could not be precedence of a pair of sea serpent taken so distinctly as I wished. It had no fin sightings from 1808 that took place in the that I could perceive, and seemed to me to same locality. At a meeting of the Wernerian move progressively by undulation up and Natural History Society on the 13th of May down. Its length I believed to be from 70 to 1809, the Secretary read a letter by member 80 feet; when nearest to me, it did not Reverend Donald Maclean concerning a raise its head wholly above water, so that large UMO which had been seen in the the neck being under water, I could Hebrides the preceding June (in Oudemans perceive no shining filaments thereon, if it 1892:125): had any. Its progressive motion under I observed [off the coast of Coll], at water I took to be rapid, from the about a distance of half a mile, an object shortness of the time it took to come up to to windward, which gradually excited the boat. When the head was above water, astonishment. At first view it appeared like its motion was not near so quick; and a small rock. Knowing there was no rock in when the head was most elevated it that situation, I fixed my eyes on it close. appeared evidently to take a view of Then I saw it elevated considerably above distant objects. the level of the sea, and after a slow Oudemans points out that by the “shining movement, distinctly perceived one of its filaments,” Maclean means the bristles of the eyes. Alarmed at the unusual appearance decomposing fins from the basking shark and magnitude of the animal, I steered so that was the Stronsay Beast. He is as to be at no great distance from the particularly heartened by Maclean’s referral shore. When nearly in a line betwixt it and to the broad shoulders of the UMO, since it the shore, the monster directing its head supports his own contention that all such (which still continued above water) creatures are prehistoric marine mammals towards us, plunged violently under water. and not true snakes. He states that the other Certain that he was in chase of us, we behavioral attributes reported by Maclean plied hard to get ashore. Just as we will be repeated in later sightings throughout leaped out on a rock, taking a station as the nineteenth century. Maclean’s letter also high as we conveniently could, we saw it goes on to note that at about the same time coming rapidly under water towards the of his own sighting, another took place when stern of our boat. When within a few yards the crew of the ferry boat from Rum to

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Canna observed a similar animal. a glass on the left of the visible object, the 6. For my Scottish Isles conservation water moving in a manner, as if the object biology counterpoint using alternative expert extended there under the water, and this and witness evidence, I note that Oudemans motion was of the same length as the part ignores the obvious disparity between the of the object visible above the surface. two sightings; namely that the 1808 UMO Therefore we took care, not to steer too displayed a prominent “head” above the near, lest the screw should be damaged water, whereas this was not the case for the by some floating pieces of the wreck. But Leda UMO. Also, there is no mention of a on getting nearer we observed that the series of humps for the 1808 UMO, which is object was not a wreck, and, if we had not arguably the most overt physical trait known with certainty that on these coasts displayed by the Leda UMO (Figure 3). In there are no shallows, we should have short, it is difficult to reconcile these taken this dark connected row of bumps disparities. for rocks. When, however, we changed our A better Scottish contextual reference for course obliquely from the object, which lay the Leda encounter occurred the following quite still all the time, to our astonishment decade. It is telling that Oudemans, there rose, about eighty feet from the contrastingly either emphasising or playing visible end, a fin about ten feet in height, down evidence as he developed his theory which moved a few times, while the body that a long­necked paleo­seal is the gradually sank below the surface [Figure candidate animal for all sea serpent 7]. In consequence of this the most sightings, ignored linking this 1882 sighting elevated end rose, and could distinctly be to that of the Leda, given that both are what made out as the tail of a fish of immense Heuvelmans (1968) would later refer to as dimensions. his “many­humped” category of sea The length of the visible part of this monsters, and what I suggest in these two animal which had not the least cases to be indicative of entangled basking resemblance to the back of a whale, sharks. measured, according to our estimation, In a July 1882 letter to the newspaper about 150 feet, the hills, which were from Illustrirte Zeitung (the German equivalent to three to four feet in height, and about six The Illustrated London News), Captain or seven feet distant from each other, were Weisz of the steamer Kätie describes an smaller on the tail end than on the head encounter of several months prior with an end, which withdrew from our observation. UMO off the Butt of Lewis, the northern tip of At our arrival at Newcastle, I learned the Hebrides (in Oudemans 1892:277): that some days before some fishermen of We observed on the starboard bow, Lewis had observed the same or similar at a distance of about two miles, a dark animal. Had I recognized the object before object lying on the surface, which was only us, to be one of these creatures, which for slightly moved by the waves; first we took so long time belonged to the fables, I if for a wreck, as the highest end should certainly have neared it with the resembled the bow and the forepart of a Kätie as much as possible. ship, and the remaining bumpy part Oudemans resorts to some fancy resembled the broken waist of a ship filled footwork to force­fit the Kätie UMO into his with water. As we got nearer we saw with

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Figure 7. Illustration of the many­humped Kätie UMO observed in the Scottish Hebrides in 1882 (from Captain Weisz in Oudemans 1892), and used herein to suggest that this sighting, like that of the Leda from the same area in the previous decade, were both of non­lethally entangled basking sharks. one­size­fits­all, paleo­seal typology. While illustration strongly suggest the Kätie UMO acknowledging that the bunches were to have been several, and possibly more, displayed even when the animal was basking sharks, which often swim in a line motionless or nearly so, he does not address snout­to­tail, or parallel side­by­side, while the inconvenient truth that obviously, if this is feeding on dense patches of plankton the case, the dorsal flexure cannot be (Speedie 2017). The dorsal fins of several related to any undulating movement; in sharks are clearly shown, the anterior one short, this UMO, as many others similarly so­ possibly displaced slightly to the right side. described, has a body that is One can go online to watch scenes from the compartmentalized into permanently rigid famous 1934 ethno­fiction film Man of Aran, up­and­down segments. He is rightly or read modern accounts of ecotourists in disbelieving that any animal could be as long Scotland that describe similar scenes, some as “150 feet,” but concludes that Weisz must of which are accompanied by photographs, have exaggerated the dimensions, rather all resembling aspects of the Kätie than countenancing the possibility that the encounter. The difference is that, with enormous proportions were due to a train of respect to the 1882 sighting, it seems that entangled gear or debris. Next, Oudemans the anterior shark is pulling a train of non­ twists himself in a pretzel developing a lethally entangled fishing floats, indicated by fiction that involves the animal “searching for the 16 humps displayed and described as food in a playful manner” wherein it turns “lying on the surface.” about and raises one of its “hindflappers” and then one of its “foreflappers” in the air as The Nature of the Beast it presumably rolls on its side. It was these appendages, he believes, that were Historical ecology is, as Alexander et al. misidentified by the captain and the (2017) correctly state, “a forensic pursuit.” In illustrator (Andrew Schultz, a well­known this regard, it is generally an easier task to animal painter) as being a tail, something infer non­lethal entanglement from accounts which had the observers been closer to the of sea serpents than it is to theorize about animal, Oudemans insists, they certainly the nature of the animals themselves who would have correctly identified. are responsible for dragging the debris. This The description and especially the is especially the case when the entangled

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animals do not have to surface to breath. So, prodigious size of the animals, which at ten whereas it is not difficult to advance that metres is comparable to school buses whales wrapped about in presumed combat (Fairfax 1998), that attracts attention and with enormous snakes, or sea monsters makes Scottish observers think and refer to resembling turtles sporting long and narrow them as being “monstrous” (Maxwell 1952; tails, are really entangled animals (France Speedie 2017). But it is also their behavior 2016a,b), candidate identification it is more which contributes to them being difficult when the species is most likely a fish misconstrued as sea monsters. When filter­ (France 2019). That said, there are feeding on blooms of plankton near the similarities between the 1817­19 Gloucester surface, the tips of a basking shark’s snout, UMO, which I conclude to have been an first dorsal fin, and upper tail lobe are all entangled giant Bluefin tuna, and the 1872 exposed conspicuously out of the water, and Leda UMO, which I propose to have been, given the size of the beast, often separated like the Kätie UMO sighting in the same by considerable distance. Illustrations and region a decade later, a basking shark. What photographs of such surface­swimming I suggest to be the entangled strings of net­ basking sharks (Maxwell 1952 Gould 1930; floats for both UMOs appeared nearly Fairfax 1998) inarguably do look like what motionless on the surface, giving the the gullible could imagine to be a many­ impression of the animals basking in the humped sea serpent. Basking sharks are sun, interrupted by sudden and splash­less common in waters along the northwest coast disappearances. This could indicate that the of Scotland, being plentiful enough to sustain animal attached to the front­end of the debris commercial fisheries there over a period of train was swimming about underwater, centuries (Fairfax 1998) and into modern feeding on dense patches of herring in the times (Maxwell 1952; Watkins 1958). By far, case of the tuna, or on plankton for the they are the most abundant large species of basking shark, normal behavioral traits for marine life in the region. Not surprisingly, these species. Furthermore, in both cases, Maxwell (1952) believed that many so­called heads were described based on inferences sea monster sightings were really made that the subtly displayed first of the unrecognized basking sharks. This is segmented components in the water were something supported by a parsing of the such, rather than obvious crania that were words contained in numerous reports of prominently shown above the surface, UMOs from the British Isles compiled by displaying discernable eyes and mouths. Harrison (2001). Magin (1996) noted that the Again, this bespeaks piscine candidates for annual spring migration of basking sharks these entangled animals rather then along the British coast corresponds to the cetaceans and chelonians. first seasonal reports of seas serpents, and Basking sharks, more than other species, when the sharks depart the area, the have a close ethnozoolgical relationship to sightings cease. Part of this might be due to sea monsters. Indeed, their very taxonomic the propensity of the animals to swim in long name, Cetorhinus maximus, means “pointy­ lines, nose to tail, which “when seen from a nosed monster.” Not without reason, then, distance they look like nothing other than a did Colin Speedie (2017) entitle his book A sea snake or plesiosaur” (Speedie 2017:18). Sea Monster’s Tale: In Search of the Speedie provides a modern anecdote of Basking Shark. Often it is the unusual and standing beside an individual whom insisted,

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despite being told otherwise, that the being caught in herring nets set in British distance view of a basking shark off the Isles’ waters during the 1800s, with one Scottish coast was a definitive sea serpent animal subsequently put on display due to its as she had often observed. monstrous size. It is my contention that And these misconstrued sightings were basking sharks that have partially but for solitary or several basking sharks which incompletely escaped from such encounters were not entangled in maritime debris. with fishing gear or hunting equipment are, Attach to such an animal the presence of a to paraphrase the famous closing line from long, serpent­like “body” or “tail” in the form The Maltese Falcon—a film about another of a string of herring net floats or harpoon much sought after but ultimately upon hunting kegs, bouncing on the surface of the careful examination, unremarkable, water as it is pulled along, and it is no animal—“the stuff that [sea serpent] dreams wonder that observers of both the Leda and are made of.” Kätie UMOs became convinced that they were seeing the famous sea serpent, the CONCLUSIONS subject of frequent discussion in scientific circles at the time. Conservation Biology Implications The entanglement of basking sharks has long been noted. Pontopiddian (1755), for Gauging the full magnitude of example, provides one of the earliest anthropogenic impacts upon aquatic descriptions of bycatch, with specific ecosystems necessitates estimating their reference made to fishermen’s concerns one­time natural conditions. In the absence about their nets in the presence of the of detailed historical catch records, species. Likewise, Wilcocks (1884:182) researchers have had to imaginatively use states that sharks are the “plague” of novel ethnozoolgical data sources, including, nineteenth­century British and Scottish for example, physical artifacts such as fishermen, due to them making “dreadful trophy photos, repurposed body parts, or havoc” among lines and net meshes. During fishing gear (McClenachan 2009; Drew et al. the middle of the twentieth century, the 2013; Rice et al. 2017), and textural problem became so severe in British information from non­traditional anecdotal Columbia, with hundreds of salmon nets accounts (Al­Abdulrazzak et al. 2012; becoming ruined each month, that the France 2016a,b). Studies of shifting government declared basking sharks to be baselines with respect to sharks (e.g. Baum “destructive pests,” and instigated a fishery and Ransom 2004; Fortibuoni et al. 2016; to cull them. It is not a coincidence that this Ferretti et al. 2018) need to recognize that was also the time of a peak in sea serpent these populations have been subjected to sightings in that region of Canada (Wallace pressures of not just direct fishery and Gisborne 2006). Near the Hebrides, the exploitation but also to becoming by­catch Irish, during the nineteenth century, actually resulting from entanglement in that fishing or capitalized on this tendency for basking hunting gear. The present ethnozoological sharks to become entangled when they reinterpretation of a handful of accounts of established their own specialized, net­based sea serpent sightings from the nineteenth fishery for the animals (Speedie 2017). century is important for suggesting that the Fairfax (1998) mentions basking sharks entanglement of sharks in maritime debris

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has a much longer environmental history Anonymous. (2019b) Whale washed up in than is commonly believed. This paper Caithness tangled in Canadian fishing gear. BBC News, 03/06/19. www.bbc.com/news/uk­ provides another example of how scotland­highlands­islands­48497046. ethnobiological studies (Saenez­Arroyo et al. Barclay J (1811) Remarks on some parts of the 2006; Narchi et al. 2013; Rice et al. 2017; animal that was cast ashore on the Island of Loveless 2017; Zapelini et al. 2017; France Stronsa. Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural 2019) can contribute toward recognizing History Society 1:418­444. past fishing­related pressures and historical Barber L (1980) The Heyday of Natural History shifts in baseline conditions of affected 1820­1870. Doubleday & Company. populations. Bauer HH (2013) Cryptozoology and the troubles with ‘skeptics’ and mainstream ENDNOTES pundits. Journal of Scientific Exploration 27:690­ 704. Baum JK, Myers RA (2004) Shifting baselines 1 “If this thing looks like those drawings, and the decline of pelagic sharks in the Gulf I’m emptying my clip into it.” – Agent Fox of Mexico. Ecology Letters 7:135­145. Mulder, The X­Files (Season 10: Mulder & Bekker­Nielsen T, Casola DB (Eds.) 2010. Scully Meet the Were­Monster). Ancient Nets and Fishing Gear. Aarhus University Press. 2 “I have never met anyone so Berger C (1983) Science, God, and Nature in passionate and dedicated to a belief as you. Victorian Canada. University of Toronto Press. It’s so intense that sometimes it’s blinding.” – Binns R (1984) The Loch Ness Mystery Agent Dana Scully, The X­Files (Season 1: Solved. W.H. Allen. Young at Heart). Bolster WJ (2012) The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail. Harvard University REFERENCES Press. Brink­Roby H (2008) Siren canora: The mermaid and the mythical in late nineteenth­ Aiken W R G, Purser J (1936) The preservation century science. Archives of Natural History of fibre ropes for use in sea­water. Plymouth 35:1­14. Laboratory New Series 20:643­654. Brongersma LD (1968) The Soay Beast. Al­Abdulrazzak D, Naidoo R,.Palomares MLD, Beaufortia 15:33­46. Pauly D (2012) Gaining perspective on what we’ve lost: The reliability of encoded Brown CM (1990) A natural history of the anecdotes in historical ecology. PLOS One Gloucester sea serpent: Knowledge, power, 7:1­5. and the culture of science in Antebellum America. American Quarterly 42:402­436. Alexander KE and others. (2017) Tambora and the mackerel year: Phenology and fisheries Burns EI (2014) Monster on the Margin: The during an extreme climate event. Science Sea Serpent Phenomenon in New England, Advances 3:1­18. 1817­1849. Ph. D. Thesis, Department of History, University of Buffalo. Alves RT, Albuquerque UP (Eds.) (2017). Ethnozoology: Animals in Our Lives. Elsevier. Burnett DG (2007) Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth­Century Court Case that Put the Anderson, E.N., D. Pearshall, E. Hunn and N. Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Turner (Eds.) (2011) Ethnobiology. Wiley­ Nature. Princeton University Press. Blackwell. Burton M (1960) The Soay Beast. The Illustrated Anonymous. (2019a) Dead whale was tangled London News (June 4, 1960):972­973 in rope in East Lothian for ‘months’. BBC News 25/04/19. www.bbc.com/news/uk­scotland­ Burton M (1961) Was the Soay Beast a tourist? edinburgh­east­fife­48051954. The Illustrated London News (October 14, 1961):632.

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