REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [10] 
The portions of the pen in my possession belong to the posterior part 
of the blade, with fragments from the middle; although neither the 
actual length nor the greatest breadth of this part can be given, we 
can yet judge very w r ell what its general form and character must have 
been. It was a large, broad and thin structure, of a yellowish brown 
color, and translucent. Its posterior portion (Plate III, figure 3) re¬ 
sembles that of Loligo , but its anterior and lateral edges are entirely 
different, for instead of having a regular lanceolate form, tapering to 
both ends, as in Loligo , it expands and thins out toward the lateral and 
anterior borders, fading out insensibly, both at the edges and end, into 
soft membrane.* The posterior end, for about an inch and a half, rapidly 
narrows to a point, which was probably involute and hooded for a short 
distance; from this portion forward the width gradually increases from 
1.2 inches to 5 inches, at a point 25 inches from the end, where our 
specimen is broken off; at this place the marginal strips are wanting, 
but the width is 5 inches between the lateral midribs (d, d"), which 
were, perhaps, far from the margin. Along the center of the shell 
there is a strong, raised, smooth, rounded midrib, which is very con¬ 
spicuous in the middle and posterior sections, becoming angular near 
the end. On each side of the midrib is a lateral rib of smaller size. 
These at first diverge rapidly from the central one, and then run along 
nearly parallel with the outer margin and about .4 of an inch from it, 
but beyond 11 inches from the point the margins are torn off; the lateral 
ribs gradually fade out before reaching the anterior border; near the 
place where they finally disappear they are about 6 inches apart.! 
NO. 6 (OF FORMER ARTICLES)—SAME AS No. 3. 
No. 7.—Labrador specimen. 
Dr. D. Honeyman, geologist, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, has published, 
in a Halifax paper, a statement made to him by a gentleman who claims 
to have been present at the capture of another specimen (No. 7), in the 
Straits of Belle Isle, at West Saint Modent, on the Labrador side: “It 
was lying peacefully in the water when it was provoked by the push of 
an oar. It looked fierce and ejected much water from its funnel; it did 
not consider it necessary to discharge its sepia, as mollusca of this kind 
* Probably there may have been a narrow prolongation or shaft beyond the portion 
preserved, but of this there is no fragment. 
tMr. Harvey published popular accounts of this specimen, and of the praviously 
captured arm of the larger one (No. 2), in the Maritime Monthly Magazine of Saint 
John, New Brunswick, for March, 1874, and in several newspapers. Acknowledgments 
are also due to Mr. Alexander Murray, provincial geologist, who cooperated with Mr. 
Harvey in the examination and preservation of these specimens, and who has also 
written some of the accounts of them that have been published. See also the Ameri¬ 
can Naturalist, vol. viii, p. 122, February, 1874; American Journal of Science, vol. vii, 
p. 460; Nature, vol. ix, p. 322, February 26, 1874; Appleton’s Journal, January 31, 
1874 ; Forest and Stream, p. 356 (with figure), January, 1874. 
