136 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



extended over the " back " of the body and spread along 

 the outer surface of the tentacles, shading into a paler blush 

 on their sides. The other parts of body and tentacles were 

 of a pure bluish white of milky translucency. 



Identity of Giant Squid. Although some characters 

 valuable in assigning such specimens to their kind, such as 

 the eyes, were missing, the size of the individual, the toothed 

 suckers without hooks, the smooth rimmed connective 

 suckers of the tentacular arms, the lack of fin-like extensions 

 on any of the sessile arms, and the size, position, and shape 

 of the caudal fin leave no doubt that it belonged to the genus 

 of Giant Squids, Architeuthis. 



The most satisfactory descriptions of Architeuthis 

 individuals are those of A. E. Verrill in his Report on the 

 Cephalopods of 'the North-eastern Coast of America (1882), and 

 comparison of the size and proportions of the body of the 

 Scottish specimen, of the shape and size of the caudal fin, 

 and of the structural details of suckers on sessile and stalked 

 arms with his descriptions, indicates with tolerable certainty 

 that our specimen belonged to the species designated by him 

 Architeuthis harveyi (Kent) Verrill 



As, however, individuals hitherto found in the eastern 

 Atlantic have usually been attributed to Architeuthis 

 mondchus or to A. dux, two forms insufficiently described by 

 Steenstrup in 1857, but since constantly associated with his 

 name, I have made comparison with the available descrip- 

 tions of these species without finding that they show any 

 better agreement with the Scottish specimen than Verrill's 

 accounts of A. harveyi. 



Distribution of Giant Squids ; and Earlier Records from the 

 Neighbourhood of the British Isles. Giant Squids of the genus 

 Architeuthis have been found to be widely distributed in the 

 open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and in the Japanese 

 region of the Pacific. To this genus belong the great squids 

 of Newfoundland, one of which has been found to measure 

 20 feet from beak to tail, and to possess stalked arms 35 feet 

 long. Although in the western area of the North Atlantic 

 Ocean Giant Squids are comparatively common as many 

 as twenty-five to thirty individuals were captured and used 



