94 TROTTY'S WEDDING TOUR.

and finally slipped away, as all distinguished summer visitors
will in time.

It was said to have been seen at Long Island again, on the
5th of October in that very year; and two years after, the staid
old town of Marblehead received a visit from him. After the
departure of what Gloucester people call, by courtesy, in
capitals, the GREAT Sea-Serpent, the town, not contented
with its honors, claimed the arrival of two more. One was
indeed, if we may credit the opinion of the Association for
the Preservation of Camphorated Caterpillars, the young of
this curious creature. It was found on Good Harbor Beach
in a swamp, and was caught and killed by a farmer with a
pitchfork. It was of a green color and about four feet long.
The other was nothing but a rather large horse-mackerel. So
easily the bean-stalk of a wonder scales the skies!

Old records tell us, more than once, of a sea-monster of the
nature of a serpent. Penobscot Bay aspired to one in 1809.
In 1689 the incredulous New-Englanders heard of the exist-
ence of a “sea-serpent or snake, that lay quoiled up like a
cable on Cape Ann. A boat passing by, with English aboard,
and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent, but the
Indians dissuaded them, saying, that if he were not killed
outright, they would all be in danger of their lives.”

In testimony whereof, I refer you to that famous and use-
ful volume, the ‘ History of Gloucester”; and if you lad
only been occupied with that, instead of reading novels, think
how much trouble you would have saved me!