THE PAST AND PRESENT OF THE CUTTLEFISHES. 109 



North American coast. These specimens have been made the 

 subject of scientific examination by Professor Verrill, and they 

 therefore indisputably prove that the cuttlefishes number amongst 

 their ranks forms which present us with living realisations of Victor 

 Hugo's "devil-fish," or even of the fabled Krakens themselves. 

 Thus one specimen found off the Newfoundland coast in 1873 

 is calculated to have measured 10 feet in length, 2 feet 5 inches 

 in diameter, its longest arms being estimated at 32 feet in length. 

 The body of another squid captured in Conception Bay in November 

 1874 was 7 feet long, its two tentacles each measuring 24 feet 

 and its short arms 6 feet in length. Specimens of giant squids 

 attaining a length of 19 or 20 feet have been met with off the 

 Irish coast. Professor Verrill describes a specimen cast ashore in 

 December 1874 on the Newfoundland coast as measuring 40 feet in 

 total length, the body alone being about 14 feet long. The longest 

 sucker of this specimen measured i inch in diameter. These speci- 

 mens belong to the squid family, and are included in the genus 

 Architeuthis. On the Alaska coast specimens of cephalopods 

 measuring 14 feet in length minus the extremities of the tentacles 

 have occurred ; these latter specimens being referred to the genus 

 Ommastrephes. Professor Verrill's detailed account of the giant 

 cuttlefishes of the American coast will be perused with interest. 

 There remains no doubt that the stories and legends of the older 

 narrators may have possessed at least a germ of fact. The surprising 

 fact remains that only within the past few years has science been 

 made acquainted with the existence of these giant members of the 

 race. In view of this long-delayed information it may well be 

 questioned whether the sea-serpent itself may not prove a reality of 

 the future ; whilst it may be safely assumed that these giant cuttle- 

 fishes have more than once played the part of the "great unknown" 

 of the sea-depths, and have been described under the title and 

 guise of unknown " sea-monsters." 



The past history of the cuttlefishes unites in itself a knowledge 

 at once of their present position in the animal world and of their 

 progress towards that position. The history of their past begins with 

 the recognition of the pearly nautilus (fig. 8) as an animal which, being 

 a four-gilled cuttlefish and possessing an external many-chambered 

 shell, stands alone in the world of life. It is the tribes of two-gilled 

 cuttlefishes which people our ocean to-day, and which exhibit all the 

 gradations of form and size, from the minute Spirula (fig. n) to the 

 great Architeuthis of the American coasts. The history of the 

 cuttlefishes in time begins in the far-back epoch represented by the 

 Lower Silurian rocks of the geologist. There are entombed the first 

 fossil cuttlefishes, represented by their chambered shells. The genus 

 Orthoceras, represented by shells of straight form, is thus amongst 



