220 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [10] 



The portions of the pen in my possession belong to the posterior part 

 of the blade, with fragments from the middle; although neither the 

 actual length nor the greatest breadth of this part can be given, we 

 can yet judge very well what its general form and character must have 

 been. It was a large, broad and thin structure, of a yellowish brown 

 color, and translucent. Its posterior portion (Plate III, figure 3) re- 

 sembles that of Loligo, but its anterior and lateral edges are entirely 

 different, for instead of having a regular lanceolate form, tapering to 

 both ends, as in Loligo, it expands and thins out toward the lateral and 

 anterior borders, fading out insensibly, both at the edges and end, into 

 soft membrane.* The posterior end, for about an inch and a half, rapidly 

 narrows to a point, which was probably involute and hooded for a short 

 distance; from this portion forward the width gradually increases from 

 1.2 inches to a inches, at a point 25 inches from the end, where our 

 specimen is broken off; at this place the marginal strips are wanting, 

 but the width is 5 inches between the lateral midribs (d, d"), which 

 were, perhaps, far from the margin. Along the center of the shell 

 there is a strong, raised, smooth, rounded midrib, which is very con- 

 spicuous in the middle and posterior sections, becoming angular near 

 the end. On each side of the midrib is a lateral rib of smaller size. 

 These at first diverge rapidly from the central one, and then run along 

 nearly parallel with the outer margin and about A of an inch from it, 

 but beyond 11 inches from the point the margins are torn off; the lateral 

 ribs gradually fade out before reaching the anterior border; near the 

 place where they finally disappear they are about 6 inches apart.f 



NO. G (OF FORMER ARTICLES)— SAME AS Xo. 3. 



Xo. 7. — Labrador specimen. 



Dr. D. Honeyman, geologist, of Halifax, Xova Scotia, has published, 

 in a Halifax paper, a statement made to him by a gentleman who claims 

 to have been present at the capture of another specimen (Xo. 7), in the 

 Straits of Belle Isle, at West Saint Modent, on the Labrador side: "It 

 was lying peacefully in the water when it was provoked by the push of 

 an oar. It looked fierce and ejected rnuck water from its funnel; it did 

 not consider it necessary to discharge its sepia, as mollusca of this kind 



* Probably there may Lave been a narrow prolongation or shaft beyond the portion 

 preserved, bnt of this there is no fragment. 



tMr. Harvey published popular accounts of tins specimen, aud of the praviously 

 captured arm of the larger one (No. 2), in the Maritime Monthly Magazine of Saint 

 John, New Brunswick, for March, 1874, and in several newspapers. Acknowledgments 

 are also due to Mr. Alexander Murray, provincial geologist, who cooperated with Mr. 

 Harvey in the examination and preservation of these specimens, and who has also 

 written some of the accounts of them that have been published. See also the Ameri- 

 can Naturalist, vol. viii, p. 122, February, 1874; American Journal of Science, vol. vii, 

 p. 460 ; Nature, vol. ix, p. 322, February 20, 1874 ; Appleton's Journal, January 31, 

 1874 ; Forest and Stream, p. 356 (with figure), January, 1874. 



