In a letter addressed to the Editor of the _Bombay Times_, and dated "Kamptee, January 3rd, 1849," Mr. R. Davidson, Superintending Surgeon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, describes a great sea animal seen by him whilst on board the ship _Royal Saxon_, on a voyage to India, in 1829. The features of this incident are consistent with his having seen one of the, then unknown, great calamaries.
Dr. Scott, of Exeter, sent to the Editor of the _Zoologist_ (p. 2459), an extract from the memorandum-book of Lieutenant Sandford, R.N., written about the year 1820, when he was in command of the merchant ship _Lady Combermere_. In it he mentions his having met with, in lat. 46, long. 3 (Bay of Biscay), an animal unknown to him, an immense body on the surface of the water, spouting, not unlike the blowing of a whale, and the raising up of a triangular extremity, and subsequently of a head and neck erected six feet above the surface of the water. This was evidently a great squid seen under circumstances similar to those described by Hans Egede (p. 67).
In the _Sun_ Newspaper of July 9th, 1849, was published the following statement of Captain Herriman, of the ship _Brazilian_:
"On the morning of the 24th February, the ship being becalmed in lat. 26° S., long. 8° E. (about forty miles from the place where Captain M'Quhæ is said to have seen the serpent), the captain perceived something right astern, stretched along the water to a length of twenty five or thirty feet, and perceptibly moving from the ship, with a steady sinuous motion. The head, which seemed to be lifted several feet above the water, had something resembling a mane running down to the floating portion, and within about six feet of the tail. Of course Captain Herriman, Mr. Long, his chief officer, and the passengers who saw this came to the conclusion that it must be the sea-serpent. As the 'Brazilian' was making no headway, to bring all doubts to an issue, the captain had a boat lowered, and himself standing in the bow, armed with a harpoon, approached the monster. It was found to be an immense piece of sea-weed, drifting with the current, which sets constantly to the westward in this latitude, and which, with the swell left by the subsidence of a previous gale, gave it the sinuous snake-like motion."