254 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



barbed points, sunk into the soft body. To the grapnel 

 they had attached a stout rope which they had carried 

 ashore and tied to a tree, so as to prevent the fish from 

 going out with the tide. It was a happy thought, for 

 the devil-fish found himself effectually moored to the 

 shore. His struggles were terrific as he flung his ten 

 arms about in dying agony. The fishermen took 

 care to keep a respectful distance from the long ten- 

 tacles, which ever and anon darted out like great 

 tongues from the central mass. At length it became 

 exhausted, and as the water receded it expired. The 

 fishermen, knowing no better, proceeded to convert it 

 into dog's meat. It was a splendid specimen, the 

 largest yet taken, the body measuring twenty feet 



from the beak to the extremity of the tail The 



circumference of the body is not stated, but one of the 

 arms measured thirty-five feet. This must have been 

 a tentacle. Twenty other specimens are mentioned by 

 Mr. Verrill, and their dimensions given. 



It is not only on the north-eastern coasts of America 

 that these gigantic cephalopods have been met with, 

 for Mr. W. H. Dall, discovered a large and very in- 

 teresting species, viz., Onychoteuthis robusta, near Iliu- 

 link, Unalashka Island, off the coast of Alaska, in 

 1872, thrown upon the beach, and Mr. T. W. Kirk, 

 in the ' Transactions of the Wellington Philosophical 

 Society/ October, 1879, describes the occurrence of five 

 specimens of giant cuttle-fish on the coast of New 

 Zealand, of the species Architeuthis Mouchezi(?) . The 

 cuttle-bone of one, when first extracted, measured six 

 feet three inches in length, and eleven inches in width.* 



* • The Cephalopods of the North Eastern Coast of America,' Parts 

 i. and ii., by A. E. Verrill. 



