GIGANTIC CUTTIE-FISHES. 109 



Dr. Morch informed him that the beak of this animal was nine 

 inches long. He adds that another huge cephalopod was 

 stranded in i860 or 1861, between Hillswick and Scalloway, on 

 the west of Shetland. From a communication received by Pro- 

 fessor Allman, it appears that its tentacles were 16 feet long, the 

 pedal arms about half that length, and the mantle sac 7 feet. The 

 largest suckers examined by Professor Allman were three-quarters 

 of an inch in diameter. 



We have also the statement of the officers and crew ot the 

 French despatch steamer, ^^Aledoji" commanded by Lieutenant 

 Bouyer, describing their having met with a great calamary on the 

 30th of November, 1S61, between Madeira and Teneriffe. They 

 say that the body of the creature, which, like Rang's specimen, 

 was of a deep red colour, measured 16 feet to 18 feet in length, with- 

 out reckoning that of the formidable arms. The harpoons thrust 

 into it drew out of its soft flesh; so they shpped a rope with a running 

 knot over it, which held at the juncture of the fins ; but when they 

 attempted to haul it on board, the enormous weight caused the 

 rope to cut through the flesh, and all but the hinder part of the 

 body fell back into the sea and disappeared. M. Berthelot, the 

 French Consul at Teneriffe, saw the fins and posterior portion of 

 the animal on board the ^^Alccton " two days afterwards, and sent 

 a report of the occurrence to the Paris Academy of Sciences.* 



These are statements made by men who, by their intelligence, 

 character, and position, are entitled to respect and credence, and 

 whose evidence would be accepted without question or hesitation 

 in any court of law. There is, moreover, a remarkable coincidence 

 of particulars in their several accounts, which gives great im- 

 portance to their combined testimony. The public, after being 

 deceived by Pliny with his rapacious colossal polypus, and by 



* In the illustration of this occurrence given in ^I. Louis Figuier's book, 

 "La Vie et les Moeurs des Animaux," and the English translations of it, the 

 size of the calamary is so exaggerated that undeserved discredit has been 

 brought by it on the narrators of the incident. 



