no THE OCTOPUS. 



Olaus Magnus, Pontoppidan and De Montfort with their fabulous 

 or grossly exaggerated " Kraken," leaped hastily across the path 

 of truth from easy gullibility on the one hand to unreasoning 

 incredulity on the other. " /// medio tittissiimcs ibis " is a rule 

 which may be safely applied to this case, as to many others. The 

 accumulated weight of such aggregate testimony as had been 

 adduced should, even if unsupported by confirmatory facts, have 

 been sufficient to convince any thoughtful inquirer of the existence 

 of very large cephalopods, individuals of which have occasionally 

 been seen, and correctly described by some trustworthy observers, 

 although absurdly exaggerated and misrepresented by others. 



But fortunately, we are not left dependent on documentary 

 evidence alone, nor with the option of accepting or rejecting, as 

 caprice or prejudice may prompt us, the narratives of those who 

 have told us they have seen what we have not. Cuttle-fishes of 

 extraordinary size are preserved in several European museums. 

 In the collection of the Faculty of Sciences at Montpellier is one 

 six feet long, taken by fishermen at Cette, which Professor Steen- 

 strup has identified as OmmastirpJics pteropiis. One of the same 

 species, which was formerly in the possession of M. Eschricht, 

 who received it from Marseilles, may be seen in the museum at 

 Copenhagen. The body of another, analogous to these, is exhi- 

 bited in the museum of Trieste. It was taken on the coast of 

 Dalmatia. At the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth 

 in 1841, Colonel Smith exhibited drawings of the beak and other 

 parts of a very large calamary preserved at Haarlem ; and M. P. 

 Harting, in i860, described in the Memoirs of the Royal Scientific 

 Academy of Amsterdam portions of two extant in other collections 

 in Holland, one of which he beHeves to be Steenstrup's Architeiithis 

 dux, a species which he regards as identical with Ovimasirephes 

 todariis of D'Orbigny. Dr. J. E. Gray scientifically described, 

 many years ago, in his "Spicilegia Zoologica," a specimen of 

 Sepioteuihis viaj'or from the Cape of Good Hope, the body of 

 which measured 27 inches, the head 6 inches, and the fins and 



