Squid Superstitions 1 39 



a sperm whale can be killed without first ejecting from 

 his stomach huge fragments of this popularly believed 

 by seamen to be the largest of all God's creatures. 

 Not only so, but in every book which has been written 

 about the sperm whale fishery some allusion to the 

 great Cuttle-fish will surely be found, although it must 

 be admitted that so much superstitiously childish 

 matter is usually mixed up with the facts as to make 

 the latter difficult of belief. For instance, Herman 

 Melville's wonderful Moby Dick, or the White Whale, 

 which is, and must remain, the classic upon this subject, 

 both from the magic of its style and the accuracy of its 

 descriptions, has the following : — 



* Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts 

 of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous 

 phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto 

 revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs (?) 

 in length and breadth, of a glancing cream colour, 

 lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms 

 radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting 

 like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at 

 any object within reach. No perceptible face or front 

 did it have ; no conceivable token of either sensation 

 or instinct, but undulated there on the billows an 

 unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life. 

 As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared 

 again, Starbuck, still gazing at the agitated waters 

 where it had sunk, with a wild voice, exclaimed : 

 " Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought 

 him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost." 



* *' What was it, sir ? " said Flask. 



* " The great live Squid, which, they say, few whale- 

 ships ever beheld and returned to their ports to tell 

 of it." ' 



