Nay, are there not now creatures of a vastness of bulk regarded by the generality of men as impossible?
Even in our own day there are seen the traces of animals, if not the animals themselves, of stupendous size--veritable survivals from earlier ages, preserved by some special qualities in their habitats.

I remember meeting a distinguished man in India, who had the reputation of being a great shikaree, who told me that the greatest temptation he had ever had in his life was to shoot a giant snake which he had come across in the Terai of Upper India.

He was on a tiger-shooting expedition, and as his elephant was crossing a nullah, it squealed.

He looked down from his howdah and saw that the elephant had stepped across the body of a snake which was dragging itself through the jungle.

'So far as I could see,' he said, 'it must have been eighty or one hundred feet in length.