Punch,  29 (1855), 131.

Capture of the Great American Water-Snake

Anon

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery; Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Monstrosities, Hunting, Zoology, Natural History, Comparative Philology, Charlatanry, Superstition


    Discusses reports of the capture of the 'Great American Water-Snake' in a lake near New York and analyses the snake's characteristics. Relates that the snake's power of 'heavy, short puffs' gives it the ability to write its own advertisements from Barnum's American Museum. Reports that one eminent 'naturalist of the day' has pronounced the beast to be 'a huge specimen of monstrous sea calf, resulting from a cock-and-a-bull and a nightmare'.



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