10 CEPHALOPODA. 
It is the opinion of almost all whalemen, that the sperm whale 
feeds wholly on squid. Capt. Daniel McKenzie, of New Bedford, 
says: “ The smaller kind they eat is found near the surface, and 
is from 2 to 3 feet in length; the larger kind, which probably 
have their haunts deep in the sea, must be of immense size. I 
have seen very large junks floating on the surface entirely shape- 
hess.”/- Capt. Francis Post says: “ Whales in the agony of death, 
frequently eject from their stomach pieces as large as the bulk 
of a barrel, and these in large quantities. Large pieces of squid 
are often seen floating ps the sea, which whalers consider indi- 
cate good whale-ground.”—dm. Naturalist. Vil, 90, LSi3. 
Cuttle-fish are used so extensively for bait at Newfoundland, 
that half of all the cod taken is fished with them. The cuttle 
occurs “in vast abundance, but at different times on different 
coasts; for example, at St. Pierre in July, on the southern coasts 
of Newfoundland only in August, and in Bouna Bay first in Sep- 
tember. “Its vast shoals present a curious appearance, by their 
strongly twisted, compact form. When they approach, hundreds 
of vessels are ready for their capture. At this season of the 
year, the sea on the coast of St. Pierre is covered with from 400 
to 500 sail of English and French ships, engaged in the cuttle- 
fish fishery. During violent gales of wind, hundreds of tons of 
them are often thrown up together in beds on the flat beaches, 
the decay of which spreads an intolerable effluvium around. It 
is made no use of, except for bait; and as it maintains itself in 
deeper water than the capelan, instead of nets being used to take 
it, it is jigged—a jigger being a number of hooks radiating from 
a fixed centre, made “for the purpose. The cad is in best “condi- 
tion after having fed on it. Another method of taking them is 
sometimes resorted to. Fires are made all along the shore duri ing 
the night, when the Loligo, attracted by the light, approaches too 
near for his safety, and is left on the strand by the recess of the 
tide, when the fishermen go to gather them.”— Edinb. New Phil. 
Journ., vill, 395. 
In the Polynesian Islands, the natives have a curious contriv- 
ance for catching cuttle-fish. It consists of a straight piece of 
hard wood a foot long, round and polished, and not half an inch 
in diameter. Near one end of it, a number of beautiful pieces 
of the cowrie, or tiger shell, are fastened one over another, like 
the scales of a fish, until it is nearly the size of a turkey’s egg, 
and resembles the cowrie. It is suspended in a horizontal posi- 
tion by a strong line, and lowered by the fisherman from a small 
canoe till it nearly reaches the bottom. The fisherman jerks the 
line to cause the shell to move, as if it were alive, and the jerking 
motion is called ‘ tootoofe,” the name of the contrivance. The 
cuttle-fish, attracted by the cowries, darts out one of its arms, 
and then another, and so on, until it is quite fastened among the 
