386 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 61, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



DEVILFISHES 



Two cephalopods were observed. A- large devilfish, Octopus 

 apolhjon, was taken at Nikolski Village, Umnak Island, in a beach- 

 seine drag for salmon. The water here was not more than 10 feet 

 deep at the mouth of a small stream. The ship's cook fried a steak 

 of white meat from the dome of the devilfish and we found it more 

 tender than we anticipated. The natives usually boil the head 

 steaks before frying, and they boil the tentacles before eating. 

 S. Halvorsen, Coast Guard inspector at the Akutan whaling sta- 

 tion, stated that the stomach of a sperm whale killed in 1937 con- 

 tained 16 devilfish, presumably of this species. The natives are 

 said to take good-sized specimens in Nazan Bay, Atka Island, al- 

 though we were able to get only two small ones here. 



A squid, Rossia pacifica, was found on the beach at Unimak Is- 

 land after a storm in September. The color of the dead specimen 

 was white, peppered with fine brown spots. Kenneth Newell, 

 who is familiar with the "ink-fish" of Puget Sound said that he 

 had never seen one in the Aleutian Islands. S. Halvorsen, however, 

 reported that they were common in the stomachs of sperm whales 

 brought into the Akutan whaling station. Possibly the species 

 does not range much farther west than the Alaska Peninsula. 



