sea- serpents
In the summer of 1849 Joseph Holland, Jacob Keddy and two other Nova Scotian fishermen were on South West Island, at the west side of the entrance to St. Margaret's Bay, when they saw something very large and long swimming on the surface of the water not far from land. They launched a boat and rowed out to see what it was, arriving within a short distance of it without being noticed. It looked like a huge snake, about sixty feet long and as thick as a barrel. "It was proportioned like an eel, i.e. tapering towards the extremities with no caudal fin perceptible, but one very high fin or row of spines, each of about an inch in diameter at the base, erected along its back, serving indeed as a dorsal fin, like the folding fin of Thymnus Vulgaris, or Albicore. This spinal erection seemed to occupy about one-third of its length, each end of it being about equidistant from the snake's extremities, and at a distance somewhat resembling, in size and appearance, the sail of a skiff. The animal's back was covered with scales about six inches long and three inches wide, extending in rows across the body, i.e. the longer diameter of scale being in the direction of the circumference of the body. The colour of the body was black. The men had no opportunity of seeing the belly, but what the Americans would call 'a smart chance' of becoming acquainted with the inside of it. For the creature, perceiving the boat, raised its head about ten feet above the water, turned towards it, and, opening its jaws, showed the inside of its mouth red in colour and well armed with teeth about three inches long shaped like those of a catfish. The men, now thinking it high time to terminate the interview, pulled vigorously for shore, followed for some distance by the snake, which at length gave up the chase and disappeared." This was not the last appearance of the monster in Nova Scotian waters. He was often seen in St. Margaret's Bay in the years following 1849, and the local fishermen even maintained that they had spotted two of them at or near the same time. The slight variations in the descriptions given by Holland, Wilson and others suggested that there might have been a pair, with the sexes differentiated by peculiarities of shape or colour. The skeptics - and there were many - argued that these 'sea- serpents' were either shoals of porpoises, basking sharks, whales or giant squids.