SEPIADvE. CUTTLE. 249 



the large ones with the leister, or trident, and in 

 summer the young Poiilps are caught with a line 

 weighted with lead, furnished with a cork fitted with 

 several hooks, covered with pieces of scarlet cloth, 

 twisted into thongs. He adds, that the largest Poulp 

 he ever saw was about three yards long, and weighed 

 nearly half a hundredweight, and was captured by a 

 fisherman with his hands only. Poulps of thirty 

 pounds weight are not rare at Nice, and those of 

 twenty pounds are common. 



Dr. J. H. Bennet has seen at Mentone a Poulp at 

 least two metres in length, including the tentacles . . . 

 and further adds, that a young Italian with whose 

 family he was acquainted, and who was a first rate 

 swimmer, nearly lost his life from the attack of one 

 of these monsters, about a kilometre from Leghorn. 

 He was resting upon a rock covered with seaweed, 

 after having swum a long time when a Poulp seized 

 him and would certainly have dragged him into the 

 water and killed him, if some fishermen who were 

 in a boat had not heard his cries, and come to his 

 assistance.* 



Octopus vulgaris is rare on the British coast. I 

 recollect that some years ago, one was found on the 

 shore at Beachy Head, by two fishermen, who put it 

 into a large bucket or tub, and took it round to most 

 of the houses at Eastbourne for exhibition; and Mr. 

 Gosse found one, in 1860, on the beach at Babbicombe. 

 Dr. Spence, of Lerwick, in 1862, sent an account to 

 Dr. Allman, Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh, 

 of a huge cuttle-fish, which was thrown on shore some- 



* ' La Mediterranee, La Riviere de Genes et Menton,' par Jacques 

 Henri Bennet. 



