364 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



while bright phosphorescent streaks mark the movement of the Lirger 

 forms, themselves luminous or rendered so by exciting their smaller 

 neighbors to flash as they come in contact. 



An endless array of species has been made known by our scien- 

 tists — species large and small, slender and stout, long and short; 

 species with wondrous eyes and blind species, many of the deep-sea 

 forms bearing complex luminous organs, and all of them possessing 

 wonderfull}^ developed chromatophores wdiich can be contracted or 

 enlarged at the animal's will. The contraction may reduce them to 

 a mere dot, or they may be expanded to 20 times that diameter. The 

 changes in the contraction of thousands of these minute pigment 

 cells, some of which are rosin colored, others yellow, blue-green, or 

 l.'rown, produce the flashes and changes of color that have gained 

 the name of " chameleons of the sea " for our squids. 



The literature of the past abounds in sea-serpent myths, which in 

 a large measure are traceable to giant squids. For these are the only 

 known animal whose arms can, without distortion, be made to assume 

 a serpentine form. This is clearly show^n by our sketch which is 

 proportioned, excepting partly the thickness of the tentacular arms, 

 which has been slightly increased, after measurements of an actual 

 specimen. The expanded end of these long arms, studded with 

 suckers, might easily be mistaken for the bearded or maned head, 

 usually assigned to the serpent. There would be enough basis in a 

 short view of such a vision at long range to enable the untrained 

 mind to supply more than enough detail from the imagination to 

 create a kraken, kraxen, krabben, korven, ankertrold, soe-horven, a 

 haf-gua, soe ormen, horven, aale-tust, or sea serpent. Another thing 

 very suggestive in support of this explanation is the fact that the 

 known distribution of the giant squids is coextensive with the re- 

 gions from w^hich the above-named beasts have been reported. It 

 is also interesting to note that the size of these mystic animals has 

 decreased wdtli increased ocean travel and general education. While 

 sea serpents are annually reported in sea-serpent season, no one ex- 

 cept the fearless sailors of old who braved the dangers of the deep 

 in their small vessels, have been favored with such visions as one 

 finds related by the Et. Eev. Erich Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen 

 in Norway, and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copen- 

 hagen, in his Natural History of Norway. We quote from a trans- 

 lation published in London in 1755 (pp. 199-200) : 



Another drawing also, which appears more distinct witli regard to the form 

 of tliis creature, was taken from tlie reverend Mr. Egede's journal of the Green- 

 land mission, where the account stands thus in page 6 : "On the 6th of July, 

 1734, there appeared a very large and frightful sea monster, which raised itself 

 up so high out of the water that its head reached above our maintop. It has a 



