168 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 



Edinburgh, of a huge cuttle-fish, which was thrown on 

 shore somewhere on the Shetland Isles, its body measur- 

 ing nine feet, and its arms sixteen feet in length.* Very 

 large specimens are found in the Pacific, and also in the 

 Indian seas, and the latter are said to seize canoes, and 

 drag them down ; and woe betide the unfortunate bather 

 should he happen to be taken in the grasp of one of 

 these monsters ; and on the authority of Sir Grenville 

 Temple, in Beale's ' History of the Sperm Whale/ an 

 anecdote is given, showing what happened in the Medi- 

 terranean to a Sardinian captain, who was bathing at 

 Jerbeh. He felt one of his feet in the grasp of one of 

 one of these animals, and tried with his other foot to 

 disengage himself, but his limb was immediately seized 

 by another of the monster's arms. He then endeavoured 

 with his hands to free himself, bat these also in succes- 

 sion were firmly grasped by the polypus, and the poor 

 man was shortly found drowned, with all his limbs firmly 

 bound together by the twining arms of the fish ; and it is 

 extraordinary, that where this happened, the water was 

 scarcely four feet deep. Fredol, in c Le Monde de la Mer/ 

 states that the famous diver Piscinola, who at the desire 

 of the Emperor Frederick II., dived in the Straits of 

 Messina, saw, with much alarm, enormous potilps at- 

 tached to the rocks, their arms several yards long, quite 

 capable of destroying a man. 



Pliny gives a descriptionf of the dangerous powers of 

 the polypus for destroying a human being in the water ; 

 embracing his body, it counteracts his struggles, and 

 draws him under with its feelers, and its numerous 

 suckers. It is said that the fishermen at the present 



* ' Life in Normandy,' notes. — D.D. 



f Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. bk. ix. cliap. 48, and note. 



