II -REPORT ON THE CEPHALOPODS OF THE NORTHEASTERN 

 COAST OF AMERICA. 



By A. E. Verrill. 



Part I. — The gigantic squids (Arehiteuthis) and their allies; 



WITH OBSERVATIONS ON SIMILAR LARGE SPECIES FROM FOREIGN 

 LOCALITIES. 



The early literature of natural history has, from very remote times, 

 contained allusions to huge species of Cephalopods, often accompanied 

 by more or less fabulous and usually exaggerated descriptions of the 

 creatures* In a few instances figures were attempted which were 

 largely indebted to the imagination of their authors for their more 

 striking peculiarities. 



In recent times, many more accurate observers have confirmed the 

 existence of such monsters, and several fragments have found their 

 way into European museums. 



To Professor Steenstrup and to Dr. Harting, however, belongs the 

 credit of first describing and figuring, in a scientific manner, a number 

 of fragments sufficient to give some idea of the real character ami affini- 

 ties of these colossal species. More particular accounts of the speci- 

 mens described by these and other recent writers will be given farther 

 on. 



Special attention has only recently been called to the frequent occur- 

 rence of these " big squids," as our fishermen call them, in the waters 

 of Newfoundland and the adjacent coasts. The cod-fishermen, who 

 visit the Grand Banks, appear, from their statements, to have been 



*Tho description of the "ponlpe" or devil-fish, by Victor Hugo, in " The Toilers of 

 the Sea," with which so many readers have recently become familiar, is quite as fab- 

 ulous and unreal as any of the earlier accounts, and even more bizarre. His descrip- 

 tion represents no real animal whatever. He has attributed to the creature habits 

 and anatomical structures that belong in part to the polyps and in part to the poulpe 

 {Octopus), and which appear to have been derived largely from the several descrip- 

 tions of these totally distinct groups of animals, contained in some cyclopedia. These 

 he has confounded and hopelessly mixed up. As if to make this confusion worse 

 confounded, he applied to his creation the name of " Cephaloptera," the designation 

 of a gigantic genuine fish (a "ray") found on our southern coasts, and also called "devil- 

 fish " by the fishermen. His account of the general appearance of the Octopus, however, 

 is not so bad, and was evidently based on a very superficial personal examination of 

 an ordinary specimen of Octopus vulgaris. 



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