80 



(iKiANTir CKTMrAl 



feature is the so-described extensible proboscis, which is repre- 

 sented as rather thicker than the tentacular arms and is slightly 

 expanded at the top, swelling- into a small rounded knob or 

 " head," upon which two small e3'es arc roughly indicated, and 

 which bears the mandibles. So circumstantial is the account 

 given by the ditterent persons concerned, and the minute details 

 appear in the main to be so like truth, that I do not see why the 

 extensible proboscis should not be accepted as correct, though 

 of course the little eyes may have been added as ornaments by 

 the enterprising showman. This character, if real, must neces- 

 sarily be of generic value, and I think that our Kerry " monster,'' 

 not having yet received a scientific name, maj'^ very well be 

 designated as Dinoteuthis proboscideus.* 



Appended to the above are several letters, dated 1673, from 

 uersons who had seen the cuttle and who describe it, with par- 

 ticulars of its capture. I extract the following description : 



" This monster was taken at Dingle-I-cosh in the County ot 

 Kerry, being driven up by a great storm in the month of October 

 last, 1618; having two heads, one great head (out of which 

 sprung a little head two foot or a 3'^ard from the great head) with 

 two great eyes, each as big as a pewter dish, the length of it 

 being about nineteen foot, bigger in the body than any horse, of 

 the shape represented by this figure, having upon the great head 

 ten horns, some of six some of eight or ten, one of eleven foot 

 long, the biggest horns as big as a man's leg, the least as his 

 wrist, which horns it threw from it on all sides. And to it again 

 to defend itself having two of the ten horns plain, and smooth 

 that were the biggest and middle horns, the other eight had one 

 hundred crowns a-piece, placed by two and two on each of them, 

 in all 800 crowns, each crown having teeth, that tore anything 

 that touched them, by shutting together the sharp teeth, being 

 like the wheels of a watch. The crowns were as big as a man's 

 thumb or something bigger, that a man might put his finger in 

 the hollow part of them, and had in them something like a [)earl 

 or eye in tlie middle ; over this monster's back was a mantle of a 



* The extensible "proboscis" is a character common to the immense 

 cephaloi>ofls of the North Atlantic, and tlie eyes situated up(m it, were 

 added, of course, "by the enterprising showman." — G. W. T., Jr 



