The Colorado statesman., 1905-09-30
SAVED BY A SHARK
NELS NELSON'S ENCOUNTER
WITH REAL SEA SERPENT.
Truthful Sailor Describes Adventure
with Ocean Monster-"Esting To-
bacco" Disagreed with His Snake

"You may think that this is a pretty
fair-sized sea serpent but you ought
to have seen the one that got away
he was the daddy of them all" said
Nels Nelson, one of the sailors in
charge of the big consignment of sea
specimens received at the aquarium
as he slammed writhing 5-foot spot
ted moray into the receiving tank in
the inner court of the city's famous
fisheries exhibit, says the New York
World.
You know that the moray family
spotty and green-are the originals of
the sea serpent you hear SO much
about and see so little off, said Mr.
Nelson as he inhaled handful of eat
ing tobacco.
1T was three weeks ago, or maybe it
was little over-ye-es, believe it
was a day or so over, to be exact
we were cruising off the coast of Ber-
muda looking for specimens for the
New York aquarium and we were
doing pretty well. We'd taken in a
lot of butterfly fish and green parrot
fish and a croaker-because of the
Tammany administration-and lot of
hog fish and grunts. Funny, amt it.
we always find the grunts around the
hogfish?
But to return to that sea serpent.
We'd been fishing around for some
time before we struck on this school
of morays-sort of correspondence
school, where they could learn seaser-
naptipO IN civ aaev 1acSouc and fhen
get good jobs as press agents for sum
mer resorts. OF course, these were
just little boy sea serpents and could
only play the dinlly circuits, but theyn
grow even in the quarium.
ME and another fellow was rowing
around in a small boat when l noticed
the fellow who was rowing suddenly
dropped his oars and his eyes bulged
right out of his head. He was looking
at something over my shoulder and
naturally turned my head and looked
right into the face of one of these
green boys that looked about FIVE
times as big as these ordinary ones,
and you know they look bad enough.
"Of course, that was only the first
glance, for on careful second cor sid
Grafton 1 wouldn't say that he vas
more than fifteen or eighteen feet long
maybe eighteen-and big in proper
ton. He was resting his face on the
rudder and stern of the dinky and
looking me square in the eye, his horns
standing up straight and his tooth
lined mouth opening and shutting like
a steam shovel. That was fine thing
to have suddenly flashed into your face
and l naturally jumped up, dropping
my plug of eating tobacco and knock
ing over a few lobster pots to get TO
the other end of the boat.
THE serpent leaned himself on the
stern and nibbled up that plug of
chewing at one gulp, and in about less
than a minute he seemed to regret
having done it, for he commenced
thrashing the water something fierce
with his tail-and that must have been
at least twenty feet away"
81 thought you said it was fifteenF"
said the reporter, timidly.
We'll, maybe it was. Make it siz-
teen, anyway. But fierce!
Il made a swipe at him with the oar
and hit him glancing smear across
the snoot, when-would you believe it?
he riz up out of the sea until his
head lowered above the water about
six feet, waving back and forth-jnst
like you see them in pictures-when OF
a sudden something seemed to trip
him up and he slapped face down with
bang on the dinky's stern, and before
we could do thing he had been
whisked off the boat into the water.
A shark had bit him in two, just in
time, and was toting him away to his
table d'hote."