REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [6] 
arms. A portion of the latter, measuring 19 feet in length, was pre¬ 
served by the Rev. M. Harvey and Mr. Alexander Murray for the mu¬ 
seum at Saint John’s, Newfoundland. It was photographed, and cuts 
copied from the photograph were published in some of the English mag¬ 
azines.* Before it was secured for preservation it had been considerably 
injured, many of the larger suckers having been torn off or mutilated. 
Owing to this fact they were originally described by Mr. Harvey as des¬ 
titute of marginal denticulations, but he subsequently re-examined the 
specimen, at my request, and informed me that they were all originally 
denticulated. Of this specimen I have seen only the photograph and 
some of the smaller suckers. This fragment represents the distal half 
of one of the long tentacular arms, with its expanded terminal portion 
or ‘club’ originally covered with cup-shaped suckers, about 24 of which, 
forming two central rows, are very large, the largest being 1.25 inches 
in diameter; others, alternating with these along each margin, are 
smaller, with the edge supported by a serrated ring. The tip of the arm 
is covered with numerous smaller suckers, in four rows. The part of 
the arm preserved measured, when fresh, 19 feet in length and 3.5 inches 
in circumference, but wider, “like an oar,” and G inches in circumference 
near the end, where the suckers are situated. 
It is stated that 6 feet of this arm had been destroyed before it was 
preserved, and the captors estimated that they left from 6 to 10 feet 
attached to the creature, which would make the total length between 31 
and 35 feet. According to Mr. Murray, the portion preserved measured 
but 17 feet in length when he examined it, October 31, 1873, after it 
had been a few days in strong brine. The other arm was destroyed and 
no description was made; but the portion secured was estimated by the 
Rev. Mr. Gabriel, who saw it, to have been 6 feet long and 10 inches in 
diameter; it was evidently one of the eight shorter sessile arms, and its 
size was probably overestimated. The fishermen, who were doubtless 
somewhat frightened, estimated the body of this individual to have been 
about GO feet in length and 5 feet in diameter, according to Mr. Harvey; 
but if the proportions be about the same as in the specimens since cap¬ 
tured (No. 5 and No. 14), as I believe, then the body could not have been 
more than about 10 feet long and 2.5 feet in diameter, and the long 
arms should have been about 32 feet in length.! Allowing 2 feet for 
the head, the total length, would, therefore, be about 44 feet. 
The following extract is from a letter written by the Rev. M. Harvey 
to Dr. J. W. Dawson, and published in the Montreal Gazette, February 
26,1873: “Two fishermen were out in a small punt, on October 26,1875, 
off Portugal Cove, Conception Bay, about nine miles from Saint John’s. 
*See Annals and Magazine of Natural History, IV, xiii, p. 68, Jan., 1874; and Tire 
Field, Dec. 13, 1873. The central line of this photograph is reduced four and a quar¬ 
ter times, while the front part is reduced about four times. 
t Doubtless these long arms are very contractile, and changeable in length, like those 
of the ordinary squids. 
