ABSTRACT
One of the earliest references to sea serpents seems to be that of Aristotle who writes of animals in the sea which cannot be classified by kind because they are too rare. Among the fishermen with long experience, some claim to have seen in the sea animals like beams of wood, black, round and the same thickness throughout. Others of these animals are like shields: they are said to be red in colour and have many fins. The chapter explores the story in the early nineteenth century in the waters of New England, where sea serpents were seen continually, ranging from Gloucester Bay, Massachusetts, up to Long Island. A report of the many-humped sea serpent in July 1823 is particularly interesting in that it mentions the beast’s vertical undulations: ‘It stood eastwardly, at the rate of five miles an hour, with an undulating motion, like that of a caterpillar'.
